posted January 16, 2002 02:25 PM       

The new Luthor, for me that story rocked, Luthors armour was fantastic, the story was fantastic and i kept saying Wow they blew up Luthor's planet.

The new braniac, i liked that they changed him into a colder more modern version of the old brainiac.

Satanus, another killer story, to me one of THE CLASSICS, it had everything and i anticipated every issue, and it was going on for what seemed forever,Superman split in two and i would pick up an issue and go "is this part of the stroryline?", and then i would read it and go HOLY CRAP.

Well thats just a few to start off. let me what you of the Pre cisis 90's Superman

------------------
Superheroes
Giant freaks
Tear apart the evil
To save the weak
Superheroes
Tell no lies
See all that's true
Though mutant minds

RACER X - SUPERHEROES

http://www.racerxband.com/main.html

posted January 16, 2002 09:47 PM       

It was a great era filled with some fabulous stories. In addition to Brainiac and post-Lexor Luthor, villains like Mongul and the Parasite were far better written than they are today. All that talk about Supes being "too powerful" to challenge is nonsense. It took skilled writers to challenge him effective, was all.

And as for character development, there was plenty, especially with Marv Wolfman's run on Action Comics. Its a shame that DC had to hop on the revisionist tangent and destroy Superman's legacy. By this era even the so-called "Silver Age" elements that modern readers despise so much were being used sparingly (or not at all) or were handled in such a way to make them contemporary, without completely retconning them.

Anyway, long post, but I really like this version of the Man of Steel, and would enjoy keeping this thread going with discussions about the characters, stories, and "what-if" scenarios from that time.

posted January 16, 2002 11:17 PM    

------------------
Ink's links:

for Book of Oa--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050404190706/http://www.glcorps.org/

for DC golden age sites--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050404190706/http://www.best.com/~blaklion/dc_links.html

for Superman--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050404190706/http://theages.superman.ws/

for Superboy
http://web.archive.org/web/20050404190706/http://www.superboy-lives.com/

for Superman in the 70s:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050404190706/http://superman.ws/dcmb/seventies/

posted January 16, 2002 11:37 PM       

Some great stuff with Lex Luthor in the armor and the new creepy metallic android Brainiac.

posted January 17, 2002 08:43 PM       

I'm *really* enjoying your posts on the 70s Superman, India, and hope some of us can do the same kind of thing on this thread, I mean, if anyone is interested, of course.

I'll try to get some stuff up tomorrow re: storylines or discussion ideas.

Til then (I can't resist this, cheesy, I know) remember to--

posted January 17, 2002 10:24 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:

I'd be interested to read about some of the issues I missed--especially in DCCP which was one of the best titles in the early eighties.

---

DCCP was an excellent read, i loved the SUPEMAN/GREEN LANTERN story, superman and firestorm, superman and the flash.
they gave a superman reader who really wanted to buy all the other DC comics a chance to see these characters in a story the reader of superman would enjoy. at the end of DCCP it kinda got weak, i had a love/hate relationship with the final issue with the phantom zoners, i liked the story yet hated it cause it was so far from what i wanted to happen to the ZONERS.

------------------
Superheroes
Giant freaks
Tear apart the evil
To save the weak
Superheroes
Tell no lies
See all that's true
Though mutant minds

RACER X - SUPERHEROES

http://www.racerxband.com/main.html

posted January 18, 2002 02:55 AM       

------------------
VISIT MY SUPERMAN PAGE: http://web.archive.org/web/20050404190706/http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/gernot0/PAGES/Superman.html Thanks! ;)

********************

Robin: "Holy Oleo!"

Catwoman: "I didn't know you could yodel."

********************

"When Polly's in trouble, I am not slow! It's hip, hip, hip, and awaaaaay I go!"

********************

posted January 18, 2002 09:19 PM       

------------------
Superheroes
Giant freaks
Tear apart the evil
To save the weak
Superheroes
Tell no lies
See all that's true
Though mutant minds

RACER X - SUPERHEROES

http://www.racerxband.com/main.html

posted January 18, 2002 11:20 PM       

------------------
Superheroes
Giant freaks
Tear apart the evil
To save the weak
Superheroes
Tell no lies
See all that's true
Though mutant minds

RACER X - SUPERHEROES

http://www.racerxband.com/main.html

posted January 19, 2002 09:28 PM       

Bump

------------------
Superheroes
Giant freaks
Tear apart the evil
To save the weak
Superheroes
Tell no lies
See all that's true
Though mutant minds

RACER X - SUPERHEROES

http://www.racerxband.com/main.html

posted January 20, 2002 11:38 PM    

If DC is holding back on the Saga because it might confuse post-Crisis readers, how much more confusing would it be if there were stories published about pre-Crisis Mongul or Lord Satanus?

And yet I think the work of Starlin, Swan/Williamson, Garcia Lopez, Pasko, Wolfman, and Gil Kane ought to have a new audience.

It would be a lamentable fate if this work was never reprinted (at least for a great long while) because it was actually TOO much like the post-Crisis in terms of quality.

Indeed will Newell and Gray's Lois Lane ever see reprint life in a slim volume?

posted January 21, 2002 02:10 AM       

My feeling, as I was reading them, was this it was sub-standard stuff.

Part of it was Curt Swan's artwork. It simply doesn't work for me. Too bland and two-dimensional. It had its good points, and everything I've read about Curt Swan indicates he was a cool guy, but that artistic style just bored me to tears.

Another part of it was the dialogue and the pacing of the stories. Just plain weak stuff. It had little oomph. It felt, in all honesty, like all the creativity had been drawn out of Superman a long time ago.

And it wasn't just a symptom of that era. There were some great comicbooks running around at that time. X-Men was really becoming interesting. Spider-Man seemed to have a neverending cycle of bad luck that was fascinating to watch. Detective Comics was full of cool art and cooler stories.

It's something that seems to happen to Superman periodically. It wasn't just that period, but also everything between 1993 and 1998 (basically between Death and Superman Rex). I guess other characters have had the same problem at times, I just didn't care that much.

------------------
In 1916, rock wallabies escaped from a circus in Hawaii. There is a small band of them in the hills. I have to go find them.

posted January 22, 2002 04:33 PM    

That's the nature of the imaginative process. Someone is always going to create art that appeals to one person while it has nothing to say to another person.

There's no shame in that.

posted January 28, 2002 05:08 PM    

Kurt Schaffenberger never had a bad day.

Most artists have had those days when they weren't on their game, but Schaffenberger? Never!

Even a bad inking job could hardly dim the obvious talent of the penciller. And the best inker for Kurt was himslef--although Dave Hunt and Dan Adkins served Kurt's pencils well. I''ve been going through my Superman Family stack and it's almost impossible to find a single issue that doesn't have one good Schaffenberger art job--either in the form of a reprint or a new story.

For awhile there, in issues 172 through 180, Schaffenberger was the regular artist on the round-robin new material stories (alternating between Jimmy, Lois, and Supergirl). When the title went to all new material with issue 182, Kurt handled a number of different features, often doing two stories per ish. In no. 189, Kurt pencilled the first three stories in the issue, 34 pages, doing full art on the first page --which has the Superman Family gang gathered around a big cake wishing Superman "Happy Birthday! From the Superman Family" (as editor ENB notes Superman "first appeared in Action Comics # 1, June, 1938" and this was the May-June, 1978 issue of Superman Family)--and full art on the following Jimmy story, 13 pages. Oh yeah, Kurt also did the "Superman Family Circle" masthead for the lettercolumn.

With issue 195, May-June, 1979, Schwartz takes the editor's chair away from ENB, but this is also the first issue of Superman Family to spotlight "Mr.&Mrs. Superman", by ENB and Schaffenberger, the delightful series about the young marrieds on Earth 2, which would run for the remainder of the family title's life (the last issue being no. 222, September, 1982). On this series, rather than simply conforming to the continuity of Earth 2 or the 1940s, Bridwell and Schaffenberger were able to revisit the stories that were important in their own lives--if not actually using 50s and 60s stories (which according to strict comic geek math should be Silver Age, and on Earth 1) then at least giving their stories that same flavour. This was indeed the same Lois that Schaffenberger had illustrated so lovingly in the 50s and 60s.

posted January 28, 2002 05:20 PM    

Talking about 80s Superman, "Mr. & Mrs. Superman" (which was mainly a feature of the eighties though it took place in the past) came to me as a blessing. After the Marvel Family, after Lois, after Jimmy, after Shazam! there was more that Kurt had to offer in this quiet but brilliant series. A new spring that brought back the old memories.

Along with his work on the revived Superboy series, Mr. & Mrs. stood out as a final testament to Schaffenberger's strengths on the last leg of his career.

It's quite something to contemplate all that was there in that little back-up feature. A last hurrah for E2 Superman before going into the dark night of Crisis. A last hurrah for Kurt. One of the last great things that ENB did before his death in '87.

posted February 10, 2002 01:19 AM    

quote:

---

My feeling, as I was reading them, was this it was sub-standard stuff.

Part of it was Curt Swan's artwork. It simply doesn't work for me. Too bland and two-dimensional. It had its good points, and everything I've read about Curt Swan indicates he was a cool guy, but that artistic style just bored me to tears.

Another part of it was the dialogue and the pacing of the stories. Just plain weak stuff. It had little oomph. It felt, in all honesty, like all the creativity had been drawn out of Superman a long time ago.

- Lildeath

---

Lildeath, I agree with you.

Today I re-read a comic from my collection. It's from the 70s (1978) but it's already demonstrating everything you are talking about - a veritable decline.

The story was "Super-Origin of Microwave Man" beginning in Action #487.

Your criticism of Swan's artwork has some validity - especially if you compare it to what it was just a few years before. I was amazed at how bad the art was in the story I've mentioned. The art didn't improve into the 80s... it declined further. Part of the problem was - and I realise all these things are up for debate, and I would like to hear what other posters have to say - Part of the problem was the inking of Frank Chiaramonte. I know nothing of Frank except for his large body of work inking Swan on Superman, and, in my opinion, this Swan-Chiaramonte work is the worst artwork I ever saw on Superman. It's horrible. Way below standard. But Swan's quality of work was also a shadow of its former self.

Where was the "Oomph" in Superman (as you put it)? What happened?

posted February 10, 2002 04:54 PM    

Swan's art looked great most of the time when Anderson inked, looked awful when Colletta inked, looked much better and almost as good as Anderson when Oksner inked, and looked pretty good when Chiaramonte inked--in my own opinion.

And Chiaramonte inked some of the stories that I love best.

I'd say he was every bit as good as Romeo Tanghal. He was head and shoulders above Klaus Janson when Janson started out, inking Perez on Logan's Run. And the art overall was much better than Alex Saviuk's work on various features at the same time--or for that matter Trevor von Eeden's early work on Black Lightning.

And Frank was relatively young--everyone has to start somewhere--who knows how good he could have gotten if he hadn't DIED. Which he did during that not very long run on Swan--which is why his run was not so very long.

Anyway, sofar as Swan goes, I think we see changes in his style in response to the times.

His work in the fifties is standard fare. In the sixties it's cleaner, with more sci-fi details, and a more human look (Superman doesn't look like he's cut from stone).

In the early seventies we have much much bigger panels and more play of emotion.

But in the late seventies and early eighties, tastes had changed among comics fans. Panels on most books were smaller, more to a page, there wasn't as much emotion. In fact with guys like Byrne coming into the field, there was a much more cartoonish and simplistic look to the art. And look at Frank Miller's early work--scratchy little figures, lots of panels. None of this is anything like Neal Adams.

In the eighties, Swan changed yet again. His layouts were different and Al Williamson gave him a new look all over again.

posted February 10, 2002 05:38 PM       

I already had this basic discussion with Lildeath...

He is unable to view anything in the context in which it was presented or written...

I was reading those 60's/70's & 80"s books "hot off the presses"... It hardly mattered or even occured to me to compare them against what had come before...

They are after all, only Superhero comics.

Here's another mistake he continually falls into...

He simply wants Superman comics to be something they aren't now and were never really intended to be...

You compare them to Marvels more mature lines from those (and even from theses times) and they will fail...

They were not written for the same market...

It�s comparing Apples and Oranges�

His argument may have some valid points but that is only because he judges the books against what we have today...

And I don't believe it�s really fair...

Sure there were some great stories in those days (I know, I was there and read them) but really Lildeath, go get your 80's X-Men books and compare them with what they put out now on those titles...

They seldom match up face to face with current production values AND the maturity levels of the writing and stories that simply weren't possible 20 years ago...

I think you'll find if you look hard enough you will find that the stuff we get now is as bad or worse as the anything put out Pre-Crisis...

There is no argument that we live in great times when it comes to the creativity and to some extent, maturity level in comics...

But I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater...

Using Lildeath's Context/shmontext argument, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Elvis and even the Beatles are crap compared to the musicians and sounds of today...

The lyrics are �corny� the production values are limited and the good god, Records?!?!?

But in my mind, it�s impossible to find or make better rock music�

I loved the 80�s stuff for what it is� It wasn�t pretending to be or even trying to be anything more than what it was...

This is a far cry from much of the crap we get today�

Ask Frank Miller...

------------------
With his will, or against his will, a man will reveal himself with every word ---
Ralph Waldo Emerson

posted February 13, 2002 01:05 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by KEV-EL:
Well the thing for me is this...

I already had this basic discussion with Lildeath...

He is unable to view anything in the context in which it was presented or written...

I was reading those 60's/70's & 80"s books "hot off the presses"... It hardly mattered or even occured to me to compare them against what had come before...

They are after all, only Superhero comics.

Here's another mistake he continually falls into...

He simply wants Superman comics to be something they aren't now and were never really intended to be...

You compare them to Marvels more mature lines from those (and even from theses times) and they will fail...

They were not written for the same market...

It�s comparing Apples and Oranges�

His argument may have some valid points but that is only because he judges the books against what we have today...

And I don't believe it�s really fair...

Sure there were some great stories in those days (I know, I was there and read them) but really Lildeath, go get your 80's X-Men books and compare them with what they put out now on those titles...

They seldom match up face to face with current production values AND the maturity levels of the writing and stories that simply weren't possible 20 years ago...

I think you'll find if you look hard enough you will find that the stuff we get now is as bad or worse as the anything put out Pre-Crisis...

There is no argument that we live in great times when it comes to the creativity and to some extent, maturity level in comics...

But I'm not willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater...

Using Lildeath's Context/shmontext argument, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Elvis and even the Beatles are crap compared to the musicians and sounds of today...

The lyrics are �corny� the production values are limited and the good god, Records?!?!?

But in my mind, it�s impossible to find or make better rock music�

I loved the 80�s stuff for what it is� It wasn�t pretending to be or even trying to be anything more than what it was...

This is a far cry from much of the crap we get today�

Ask Frank Miller...

---

You're making perfect sense here, Kev.

Kinda reminds me of a friend of mine not so long ago who criticised my affection for the Don Siegel film "Dirty Harry" (1971). He thinks it is so dated and slow and boring compared to the great modern action movies (yeah - like what?)... It's neither slow nor boring and not really so dated. It's firmly based in fantasy, but it has a tangible grittiness and sharpness that is sorely missing from the "great modern action movies". But anyway...

Yeah. Apples and oranges. You're quite right.

But, Kev, tell me what you think here - I feel it takes a certain amount of maturity to appreciate a work of art in the context in which it was originally created and presented. That's not to say the old Superman comics aren't great today. They are great, in any era, in or out of "context". They still stack up (no pun intended). I'm living in 2002 but I like Superman comics from the early 70s. There's your proof.

You mention 80s X-Men. I was very keen on Claremont's X-Men in the 80s. I have been a fan of 70s Superman and 80s X-Men both. To compare them for "realism" (duhh-h) is crazy and unnecessary. Fans who make such comparisons are trying a spurious argument to somehow justify their personal preferences (which is hardly necessary). It was India Ink, I think, who said, "I like what I like."

I just want to add that I really appreciate you and India Ink and the other guys who have a genuine affection for the good old stuff - and who I can argue with and either agree or disagree with yet still keep that sort of friendship and good humour.

posted February 13, 2002 02:18 AM    

quote:

---

And Chiaramonte inked some of the stories that I love best.

---

Yes, of course there are stories inked by Frank I really like.

quote:

---

And Frank was relatively young--everyone has to start somewhere--who knows how good he could have gotten if he hadn't DIED. Which he did during that not very long run on Swan--which is why his run was not so very long.

---

I had no idea about this, India. Can you fill out some details, briefly? I'm always interested to hear a little real-life history of artists, writers, etc.

quote:

---

Anyway, sofar as Swan goes, I think we see changes in his style in response to the times.

---

Well, maybe... but, for me, he's great in practically every instance except for when inked by Frank - generally speaking. Which is why I brought it up. But my comic collection is nowhere near as comprehensive as yours by the sound of it. So "I only know what I know".

quote:

---

His work in the fifties is standard fare.

---

For me, better than standard fare. A superior artist of the time.

quote:

---

In the early seventies we have much much bigger panels and more play of emotion.

---

Yes. It's good stuff.

quote:

---

But in the late seventies and early eighties, tastes had changed among comics fans. Panels on most books were smaller, more to a page, there wasn't as much emotion. In fact with guys like Byrne coming into the field, there was a much more cartoonish and simplistic look to the art. And look at Frank Miller's early work--scratchy little figures, lots of panels. None of this is anything like Neal Adams.

---

Hell, no. Again, I hardly need to say, it's my opinion - I like Byrne's work. I like Miller's art a bit less - I don't think he's all that great (as an artist). Even added together, they fall far short of someone like Neal Adams. That's true for me no matter what era you slot Neal's work into. They are just not in the same league, either as draughtsmen or as regards the expression of emotion.

quote:

---

I find it hard to be critical of his style.

---

posted February 15, 2002 11:43 PM    

I also recall that for a while before that it was unpredictable as to who we'd end up with on any given Superman issue. Oksner had gone, and a number of different inkers were embellishing Curt. So Frank, a permanent reliable inker, seemed like a breath of fresh air at the time. Although probably Dan Adkins (who also did some inking around this time) was a bit better, more seasoned, than Frank.

I wasn't trying to make a statement about who is definitely a great artist. I was just throwing out names to offer a point of comparison. The fact is, other than special projects, Neal Adams wasn't around in the mainstream comics, from about 1975 onward. The same goes for a lot of the other much admired artists from the early seventies--Barry Windsor Smith, Berni Wrightson, Michael Wm Kaluta--all had gone on to work in other areas where presumably they could make more money. There wasn't enough money in the mainstream comics to keep most professional artists happy. Murphy Anderson also left around this time.

So in the latter half of the seventies we had mostly young artists who were developing their style. Guys like Byrne, Miller, Perez, Rogers, Grell. Some of these guys got good real fast--some took a long time to get good if they ever did. But most produced uneven--unprofessional--work. And most didn't ape the Adams or the Wrightson style. Probably because these styles were too hard to ape for inexperienced artists. There were guys like Rich Buckler and Mike Nasser who did a good job of aping Neal Adams, but I was looking at a Buckler comic yesterday and I noticed how bad some panels are while others are fantastic. Which is the problem with aping somone like Adams. The steals are great, but everything else doesn't match up.

It's a lot easier to aim not so high. So it's easier to do less finished stilted figures, if that's your style throughout the book.

Against this backdrop of artists who managed to impress fans with specacular florishes, but unprofessional work--we had a few seasoned pros like Swan and Novick and Aparo who were consistent in their style. You might object to their style in the first place--and at that point I can only throw up my hands, since it's impossible to debate the merits when one refuses to even appreciate the stylistic approach--but the fact is these guys always produced the same style in every panel in a given story--there were no clunkers that stood out like a sore thumb.

But I remember reading in a lettercolumn in the early eighties that Curt Swan was working with someone to try develop a new approach to his layout style that would suit the tastes of the time. This made me absolutely cringe. Swan, one of the great layout men, trying to force a change to his style simply because a bunch of pimply fanboys couldn't appreciate great art when they saw it!

Schaffenberger puts the lie to this whole idea of art being current with the times.

I admire Curt Swan for his desire to keep up with the times, but I admire Schaffenberger for the sureness of his style.

A Schaffenberger work of art is good because it's good.

Artists shouldn't try to draw like the latest fad. They should develop a clear vision of what they want to express with their style and then stick with that.

posted February 15, 2002 11:57 PM    

I wanted to point out that while in hindsight we might decide that a certain artstyle was great, that's not how our minds always work when we read these funny books.

I was looking at some old Gold Keys and Charltons and I was struck by the absolute hack bad art there was in some of these books, published at the same time that Joe Kubert or Gene Colan or Curt Swan or John Romita were doing professional work for DC and Marvel.

Yet I also remember loving the stories therein. So what right do I have to really say that the art was bad? Yes it was bad by my mature appraising standards--but it did the job. I understood the story, I was drawn into the story, I had happy memories of the story. Which is all one should expect of a comic in the end.

posted February 16, 2002 12:41 AM    

quote:

---

But I remember reading in a lettercolumn in the early eighties that Curt Swan was working with someone to try develop a new approach to his layout style that would suit the tastes of the time. This made me absolutely cringe. Swan, one of the great layout men, trying to force a change to his style simply because a bunch of pimply fanboys couldn't appreciate great art when they saw it!

- India Ink

---

Well, that's the big question. Do you remain true to your vision, or do you change as best you can to try to be "in"? As an artist myself, this becomes a very important question. Curt Swan never had to change to be great. By the 80s his reputation as one of the all-time great comic book artists was assured and fully deserved. Looking at what you wrote above, it's not the fact that Curt wanted to try something different to remain hip that bothers me... it's the fact that he may have been prepared to be led around by the nose - "working with someone to try to develop a new approach..." Who the hell was he "working with"? An artist of his own calibre? Probably not. And I am with you on this - **cringe**

quote:

---

A Schaffenberger work of art is good because it's good.

---

I like these little sayings of yours. Very simple and true, sort of tautological.

quote:

---

It seems a great theft that we should have lost any Swan artwork not because Swan was too old to draw it but fans were unwilling to see it.

---

Yes. But we will always have the rich body of his work to enjoy. No one can take away his body of past work. It is always there.

Does anyone look in on the Green Lantern thread? I love Hal-GL... there is a sort of war going on between the fans of Hal and the fans of the new GL. The Hal fans want Hal Jordan back as GL - presumably because they want to read comics starring Hal as GL! I am a Silver-Age GL fan... and if I want to read Hal as GL, then I will! The great old stuff is all there to be read! No one can take it away. It's like The Beatles (whom I also love).... the body of great work is always there to enjoy.

So that's kind of what I meant about Curt.

posted February 17, 2002 11:58 PM    

Story: Cary Bates
Art: Curt Swan + Frank Chiaramonte
"The Miraculous Return of Jonathan Kent"

I read this again last night, for the first time in many many years, and I was actually touched by the story.

Cary Bates must have either been a father at the time he wrote this, or he must have appreciated his own father, because the pathos here is real and hard to miss. It is a very good story, and very well told. The writer did a great job in bringing the emotions to life. (There's even a good-ol' traditional DC "choke" in there. )

I'm not a big fan of Frank inking Curt, but the artists handled Jonathan in quite a sensitive manner.

Good job all around.

posted February 18, 2002 10:36 AM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Duplicate Man:

I stopped reading comics about 1982 and didn't resume until 92.

---

I think we all did.
The reason is called John Byrne.
So many of us did they had to kill him in 92 due to depressing sales. What a Re-vamp! Oh, my God!

posted February 27, 2002 08:01 PM    

For one thing, Chiaramonte was a regular inker (usually over Swan) on the Super-books between 1977 and 1982. Much longer than I remembered--seemed like he was only around for a year or two in my poor memory.

And for another thing, I can find no mention sofar in any lettercolumns or other columns that I've seen in my researches that say anything about Chiaramonte dying, or just why he suddenly departed the DC ranks. But suddenly he did go.

He seemed to be THE inker in good standing on the Super books, and then the next month he wasn't. With Dave Hunt mainly taking over his duties.

And I don't know of any comics for DC or their competition that Frank worked on after his sudden departure. So it seems like he did make a break from the world of comics. I suspect I'm right, sadly, that Frank did die back then. I'm probably just not remembering the facts correctly--like where I saw mention of his passing, and such.

Anyone with better knowledge, please pipe up and let me know.

posted March 02, 2002 04:22 PM    

The announcement of Frank Chiaramonte's passing appeared in a box at the end of Dick Giordano's "Meanwhile..." column in the August 1983 issues of DC comics.

Here is that announcement as it was printed in Superman 386:

"DC staffers and free-lancers alike were shocked and saddened to learn of the death of Frank Chiaramonte on January 28th. He died of cancer at age 40. DC and Marvel fans knew Frank best for his work as an inker, notably on Curt Swan's Superman pencils and Mike Ploog's Werewolf By Night. Most fans were less aware of his work on P.S. magazine an illustrated monthly maintenance manual for the army which he did regularly since coming to this country from Cuba in 1967.

posted March 02, 2002 04:46 PM    

1. World of Krypton--3 issues (July-Sept. '79); writer: Paul Kupperberg; artists: Howard Chaykin and Murphy Anderson (on 1&2), Chaykin and Chiaramonte (on 3); editor: E. Nelson Bridwell.

2. (Superman presents the) Krypton Chronicles--3 issues (Sept.-Nov. '81); writer: Bridwell; artists: Swan and Chiaramonte; editor: Julius Schwartz.

3. (Superman presents the) Phantom Zone--4 issues (Jan.-April '82); writer: Steve Gerber; artists: Gene Colan and Tony DeZuniga; editor: Dick Giordano.

4. Superman: The Secret Years--4 issues (Feb.'85-May '85); writer: Bob Rozakis; artists: Swan and Kurt Schaffenberger; editor: Schwartz.

5. (Superman and Batman Heroes Against Hunger--famine relief one-shot, 48 pages (1986); writers/artists/colorists/letterers: a multitude of talent (24 different creative teams, one team per two pages); conceived by Jim Starlin and Berni Wrightson; editor: Robert Greenberger.

posted March 02, 2002 05:45 PM    

1. World of Krypton

Although it appeared in the seventies, in '79, this mini sets the stage for a lot of things in other series. While credited to writer Paul Kupperberg, I detect the presence of editor ENB throughout this series, shaping the plot, giving the needed reference material, providing linguistic and factual help, probably even guiding the artists in the construction of scenes.

This mini isn't really about the "World of Krypton." It doesn't take on such a monumental task. Instead it concentrates on the life of one Kryptonian--albeit next to Kal-El and Kara Zor-El probably the most well-documented life of any Kryptonian--that being Superman's father, Jor-El.

In this one concise chronology, Kupperberg and Bridwell bring together all the scattered tales of Jor-El that had been published over the years, subtracting any contradictory tales from the lot, so that the reader comes away with a clear understanding of the major moments and achievements in Jor-El's life.

Rather than using Superman's super-memory to recall Krypton (a device that had been used by other chroniclers at the risk of straining our credulity), the set-up for this series has Superman viewing his father's "mindtapes." As the Last Son of Krypton explains on the first page: "The rocket which carried me here opened a space-warp between Krypton and Earth--which explains the appearance of so many Kryptonian artifacts around the planet....like this tape I found on the moon--"

And the series is littered with such explanations and factoids about Krypton that must have been generated from the brilliantly organizing mind of E. Nelson Bridwell. For instance, did you know that 18 Krypton years = 25 Earth years (of course, when you think about it it makes sense, being a larger planet Krypton must be further from its sun than Earth is from Sol, thus it takes longer for the planet to journey around Rao). There are names given for all the months and Kryptonian words pepper the dialogue (like "moliom" the word used when addressing a member of the science council).

This is where the mini-series succeeds, although I wish Bridwell had been good enough to give references for all the comics that this chronology derives from, but in its overarching concern for detailing all the anecdotes of Jor-El's life the series doesn't devote enough time to the man himself. What made him tick? Why does Lara love him so much that's she's willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for him--where's the "Paul and Linda" lovestory behind this "Wingspan?"

As for the artwork, like the story, it's a mixed bag. Even though I haven't liked much of anything Chaykin has written in the last twenty years (I did like Thrillkillers, however), I'd have to say he is one of the best artists doing comics today (when he does find the time to actually draw). And in 1972, I read and loved his artwork on "Iron Wolf" in Wierd Worlds, which like his contemporaries in the early seventies, Walt Simonson and Mike Kaluta, had a lot of razzle-dazzle that compensated for his lack of technical skill. But World of Krypton offers us neither the raw talent of young Chaykin or the professional work of mature Chaykin. Instead it tries to be Curt Swan!

Possibly at the urging of Bridwell, Chaykin swipes freely from Swan throughout the 3 issues. There are panels lifted directly from Swan. And it helps that Jor-El is Superman's double. Just copy Superman's face put a headband on him and--voila!--Jor-El. With Anderson inking you could almost swear at times that you're seeing an actual Swanderson page. And maybe you are--for instance page 9 of issue 2 lifts the final 3 panels (layout and all) from page 13 in "The Origin of Superman" (by Bridwell/Infantino/Swan/Anderson, first printed in the 1973 [i]Amazing World of Superman: Metropolis Edition[i] and elsewhere since then). This is the scene where young Jor-El (actually Jor-El II) comes to the bed of his dying father (Superman's grandfather, Jor-El I)--it's a moving scene, except it's swiped from the scene where young Clark comes to the bed of his dying father, Jonathan Kent!

The holes in the artwork only show through when Chaykin and Anderson illustrate the secondary characters (ie. characters that go beyond the Swan swipe-file) or where Chaykin has to make up his own poses--in which case while wearing the Swanderson heads these figure look very awkward, like Ken dolls with limited arm movement.

Once Chiaramonte is inking, in issue 3, the pretense is almost gone. There are scenes that genuinely look like good Swan, but Frank is still new to the Superman Family. He doesn't have Murphy's experience, gained from inking so many Swan pencils, so he can't make Chaykin look good.

posted March 02, 2002 06:47 PM    

Rather than documenting the life of one person, this series endeavours to explore Kryptonian history over ten thousand years!

As a story it's much better than the previous series, although it's still mainly a series of anecdotes. The set-up is longer and much more involved providing lots of entertainment.

Y'see, Morgan Edge has been looking at the Nielson's for "Roots" and "Shogun" and he wants the same kinda ratings bonanza for Galaxy. The dialogue between Perry and Clark on the elevator to Edge's office is priceless, as is the sparring between Perry and Morgan. Poor Clark--because everyone knows he's been a good friend of Superman's since their days in Smallville-- he lands the task of writing the book that will serve as the source for Galaxy's mini-series epic: "The Krypton Chronicles!"

By the time of this story Kandor has been enlarged and its citizens are now living on a Krypton-like planet rotating around a red sun, but dimensionally removed from our cosmos--except at certain times of year when it's possible for Superman and Supergirl to venture there by rocketship (it all happened in the 40th anniversary issue of Superman, no. 338, August '79).

Turns out this is one of those times of the year, and soon Kal-El and Kara Zor-El are off to stay with the relations (at least while the dimensional bridge lasts).

By this time Frank Chiaramonte has been working on Swan's pencils for awhile, and it's a good fit. No longer does he approach the art like it's Mike Ploog, but rather his work makes me think of George Klein. Not as crisp and clear as Klein (although the bad printing from Spartan press in these years may have played a part), but still very evocative of those great tales from the early sixties written by Edmond Hamilton.

Bridwell has outdone himself in putting together a well thought out history, language, and culture for his Krypton. Aiding us in this effort is a glossary at the back of each issue. Bridwell explains at the head of the glossary (for issue 1):

"Before presenting the words and definitions, we'll give a few facts about Kryptonian language and names.

"We have done our best to translate the Kryptonese words and names into the English alphabet, but this is not always easy, as the Kryptonese alphabet consists of 118 characters, each with a precise sound. A double letter indicates a strong emphasis on the sound.

"Kryptonese plurals are created by adding an O to the word, as we add an S in English. Some are given below.

"Kryptonian men used hyphenated names, like Jor-El and Jax-Ur, the last part of the name being the family name, or surname. Women used the father's full name as a surname, except for orphans such as Lesla-Lar (see her name in the listing below)."

At the head of issue 2's glossary he adds:

"There are also 11 characters for the numerical system. Their zero is used only for the purpose of indicating a zero, while 10 has special character of its own. Using the Roman X to stand for it, we could say that X=10, 1X=20, 2X=30, and so on. 100 is 9X, 101=X1, 110=XX, and 111 is the first three digit number.

"The calendar is quite different from our own, since 18 Kryptonian years equal 25 Earth years. As the aging process was the same there, a Kryptonian was fully grown at the age of 15."

posted March 02, 2002 08:17 PM    

The story tells about Superman's roots, ie. his ancestors. But rather than beginning at the beginning and proceeding forward the story goes backward. Superman learns about an earlier and earlier forebear as the series unfolds. The latest predecessors have left mindtapes in their statues (activated when a signifying object is placed in the hands of their statues). Mindtapes existed as a technology only recently. Earlier ancestors made voice recordings. But earlier still no such recordings existed, however Uncle Zor-El has a collection of headbands from the House of El, and he has fashioned an ingenius device to allow Superman to read residue memories left on the band of its owner. But for the ancient days no headbands are extant. So in the third issue, after Supergirl and Superman have made their escape from Rokyn before the dimensional bridge collapses, they return to the Fortress where Superman retrieves one of his own inventions.

They then travel through a space-warp wormhole arriving at an area of space (by my own calculation, six to ten thousand light years away from where Krypton used to exist) and using this device they capture light rays that escaped from Krypton six to ten thousand years ago, moving around in space with this device to collect the light rays, which are then displayed on a viewing screen. Using their ability to read lips, and Kal-El's knowledge of ancient Kryptonese, they are able to peek in on key moments in the lives of their ancestors (although sometimes a person's back is turned, and the word balloons are blank).

Needless to say, the result of all Clark's research was a runaway bestseller. As Morgan Edge says, "The TV writers are turning it into the biggest mini-series yet! It'll make Roots wither! Put it on in a sweep period and win top Nielsons for the year! Greg Reed's been signed to play the triple roles of Superman, Jor-El II, and Erok! It'll be an all-star cast! We'll go after Fonda, Hepburn, Richard Chamberlain. Say--I wonder if Heston would play the prophet Jaf-El...?"

In addition to the glossaries in the three issues, issues 2 and 3 had centrespreads showing a Map of Krypton and the El family tree respectively.

Running through some of the members of that tree, chronologically--starting that is with the last ancestor shown in the series--it all begins with Erok-El, who was the first to take a sirname, adding El to his name because the stars have shone favorably upon him (El meaning star) and naming his son Kal-El (Kal meaning child). The city named after him was also called Erok-El, but that became corrupted over the centuries and was called Erkol (the oldest city on Krypton). Erok united the tribes of the ancient continent of Urrika and became their Bethgar (ruler), taking Milia as his Bythgar (female version of Bethgar). And the Kryptonian calendar was dated from the day they were wed.

Many generations followed after Kal-El, the second Bethgar, and some were good rulers while others like Wab-El and his son Vad-El were tyrants. Vad-El's brother Hyr-El fled from Erkol and fathered Jaf-El and Tio-El. Jaf-El preached belief in the one God and he made many prophesies, warning the people of a coming flood that would overrun all the land. His brother, Tio-El, understood all creatures of the land, and when the flood came the brothers and a band of followers mounted the backs of the wild "Winged Beasts," gentle creatures who delivered their riders to the top of Mount Mondru, on the continent of Twenx, west of Urrika.

Bur-El was born several generations later, and he befriended Kil-Gor an inventor, who gained little respect in his own day. Bur-El married Wedna Kil-Gor, daughter of Kil-Gor, and he recorded the many inventions of his ingenius father-in-law.

More generations followed, leading to the brothers Val-El and Tro-El. Val-El read about many of the inventions of Kil-Gor, including an idea which gave him a compass for exploration. He led an expedition of four ships east across the vast ocean of Dandahu to a new continent. Joining him on the voyage was his wayward brother, Tro-El, who would lead an unsuccessful mutiny against Val-El. The mutineers were put ashore on the island of Bokos, which became an island of pirates and thieves. Along the way the Val-El expedition discovered the inhabitants of Vathlo, a land of black skinned people. On the high seas, one of their ships was attacked by a Pryllgu (a kind of sea monster), and the captain of that ship--Ar-Go--went down with his vessel. Arriving on the new continent of Lurvan, they named their settlement after Ar-Go (thus Argo City, the birthplace of Kara Zor-El, Supergirl). Still later, Val-El led an expedition across land into the "eerie valley of Juru." And they were never seen again, nor anyone since who dared to travel to that mysterious place.

Other generations followed, including Sul-El the astronomer who using the designs of Kil-Gor created a telescope and saw the coming invasion of the Vrang fleet from outer space. No one listened to his warning and the Vrang soon enslaved the Kryptonian people setting them to work mining the Jewel Mountains. Sul-El's son, Hatu-El was inspired by the brave youth Val-Lor who refused to be a hypocrate and defied the Vrang, and was killed on the spot by the heartless invading SoBs. Encouraged by Val-Lor's martyrdom, Hatu-El and a band of rebels organized the overthrow of their masters and sent Vrang butt packing back into space.

More generations followed--Wir-El the inventor, Fedra Shu-El the legislator and her husband Thar-El the jurist, their son Plen-El the novelist. Eventually leading to the brothers Yu-El and Pir-El. Yu-El was a priest of the one God, while Pir-El was a general in the Final War. Pir-El's son, Tala-El brokered the deal that united the people under a scientocracy. And Gam-El, son of Pir-El, was the master architect who rebuilt the great city state of Kryptonopolis, which had been destroyed during the Final War.

And generations after Gam-El came Var-El who begat Jor-El I, Kalya Var-El, and Zim-El. Jor-El II and Zor-El are the sons of Jor-El I and Nimda An-Dor. The evil Kru-El is the offspring of Zim-El and Byma Ruth-Ar. While Van-Zee is the son of Kalya Var-El and Nim-Zee.

---------------------------

posted March 02, 2002 10:17 PM    

In the November 1962 issue of Superman, no. 157 ("The Super-Revenge of the Phantom Zone Prisoner), convicted for a crime he didn't commit, having served his twenty-five years, Quex-Ul was released from incarceration in the Phantom Zone. Having nursed his anger against the House of El for all those years--blaming Jor-El for his wrongful conviction--Quex-Ul set out to revenge himself upon Kal-El aka Superman. But in the end he had a change of heart and put himself in the way of the Gold Kryptonite trap that would most surely have robbed the Man of Steel of all his powers. Now Quex-Ul was powerless and suffering from severe memory loss to boot, so good ol' Clark found him a job working in the production department of the Daily Planet. That's where 157 ended.

With issue 1 of Gerber's Phantom Zone--twenty years later our time--Quex-Ul is still there doing paste-ups for the Planet's front page. Or I should say Charlie Kweskill, as everybody knows him (including himself)--and it's been so long that Perry almost has forgotten that Charlie used to be a PZ Kryptonian in yellow silk pajammas.

Charlie goes home to his lonely apartment, but his dreams plague him. In his sleep he's visited by phantoms of his Kryptonian past, but waking he doesn't know what it all means. Then the Phantom Zoners (who have the limited power of making contact with our world) hatch a scheme that results in Charlie and Superman being sucked into the Phantom Zone, while most of the Zoners leap for freedom in the "real" world.

One of those who decides to remain behind in the Phantom Zone is Mon-El--given it's the only place where he is safe from the deadly lead poisoning that would kill him. Conferring with the now imprisoned Superman, Mon-El tells him that it is possible to go beyond the realm of the Phantom Zone itself, through several levels of unreality or reality, and theoretically arrive in the "real" universe--though those who've tried it have never been successful.

Thus Superman and Charlie Kweskill set out on their quest for freedom.

Meanwhile havoc reigns on Earth as the empowered Phantom Zoners run amock--nearly bringing the planet to a state of all-out world war (if not for the timely interventions of Supergirl and Wonder Woman).

The leader of the Phantom Zone pack is General Dru-Zod, while Faora and Jax-Ur serve as able lieutenants, aided by Kru-El and Professor Va-Kox. Jer-Em, the religious zealot from the mystic valley of Juru (remember that eerie unexplored land where Val-El disappeared thousands of years ago), is neither on the side of the heroes or the villains but like a lone voice in the wilderness calls out for all to repent their sins and embrace the life after which is to come. Az-Rel and Nadira are psychicly gifted youths from a lost generation who wander the Earth in a disaffected haze until they come upon an all night club where music cult non-conformists gather to celebrate "Bizarro"--a movement that declares "anyone born after 1961 is an imperfect duplicate of a human being."

One of my favourite scenes, from the fourth issue, beautifully rendered by Colan and DeZuniga, is both twisted and evocative as it shows a young shepherd named Gerard Amateau, out in the pastures of provincial France. He spies some "clothing hidden in the grass. Then he hears a female voice--singing--a song he has never heard, in a language he has never heard. He parts the grass at the edge of a pond, and for a moment he is certain he's gone mad. For there, bathing in the shallow water is a vision--so exquisitely, agonizingly sensual that he can hardly bear to look upon it. He trembles, fighting the impulse of every nucleus of every cell of his body to swarm forward and envelop her. He tries to concentrate on her song--to decipher its meaning. It's futile. The thundering of his heart is too distracting. He prays that she cannot hear it.

"But she can.

"She is Faora Hu-Ul of Krypton...and her auditory sense is as keen as Superman's. She acknowledges Gerard's presence...with an unselfconscious glance. Unlike her song, its meaning is abundantly clear--even to an inexperienced youth from the provinces. Their lips meet. Her arms enfold him--tighter--tighter--until with a sudden, sickening snap, they break his spine--and crush his ribs against the unyielding steel of her own. Then as his lungs fill with blood, she releases him...and watches as he sinks silently to his death.

"She is Faora Hu-Ul, and in the grasslands of Alezar she operated a private concentration camp, where males were lured by her beauty, only to be tormented and slain."

Through the several realms of the Phantom Zone Superman and Charlie journey on a magical mystery tour, meeting the psychedelic manifestations of a John Lennon dream. Charlie Kweskill, Quex-Ul, regains his memory and his power only to fly into the icey flaming maw of the great demon of this mystic realm, Aethyr, surrendering himself in a gambit to save Superman and the Earth.

Finally, "flying through a rent in the fabric of space itself" Superman returns to the tactile world and aided by his fellow super-heroes defeats the plot by Zod that would have put the entire Earth into the Phantom Zone.

Jer-Em no longer wishes to exist in any of these tainted realms--Earth, Phantom Zone--but rather to go to Rao. And so he hugs a lump of Green Kryptonite to his body. Az-Rel and Nadira, the two disaffected youths, happen upon the old zealot in his dying moments. Az-Rel hungers for death herself and joins the old man, and in her dying moments unleashes her psychic pyrotic power (the ability to make people spontaneously combust), consuming Az-Rel in flame.

Given I was an avid fan of Howard the Duck, so long as Gerber was writing it, I loved this series. A little more serious than Howard (although Howard could be quite ponderous at times), this book has a lot of the same kind of off-the-wall imagery by Gene Colan (who also illustrated most of the Duck's wierd adventures), as well as recalling Gene's work on Dr. Strange.

Moreover this series is one of the best illustrations of just how much could be done with the Superman mythos given half a chance. It shows all that potentiality that was never entirely explored. Superman is the sort of character that could have been bent in any one of a number of directions. It's provoking to think what Gerber, Moore, Gaiman, or Morrison might have done with all that wierd and wonderful lore from Weisinger and Bridwell.

posted March 02, 2002 11:19 PM    

quote:

---

India Ink wrote:

1. World of Krypton--3 issues (July-Sept. '79); writer: Paul Kupperberg; artists: Howard Chaykin and Murphy Anderson (on 1&2), Chaykin and Chiaramonte (on 3); editor: E. Nelson Bridwell.

2. (Superman presents the) Krypton Chronicles--3 issues (Sept.-Nov. '81); writer: Bridwell; artists: Swan and Chiaramonte; editor: Julius Schwartz.

---

Superb reviews, India. That's quite a bit of work you've put in there.

quote:

---

3. (Superman presents the) Phantom Zone--4 issues (Jan.-April '82); writer: Steve Gerber; artists: Gene Colan and Tony DeZuniga; editor: Dick Giordano.

---

By coincidence, I was just thumbing through this saga last night, so I am not going to read your review yet -- I'll read the comic first.

I did, however, catch this at the bottom of your post:

quote:

---

Of course there's a downside in pushing Superman in a more serious direction, one that I'll return to after I've done reviewing the other books on my reading list.

---

posted March 03, 2002 04:15 PM    

Unlike the comicbooks, the television version of "Superboy" in the late eighties concerned itself not with Clark's years in Smallville, but with his years away from Smallville and at university, along with Lana Lang.

When that TV series came out there would also be a tie-in comic (Superboy, The Comic Book), but even before then the comics had flirted from time to time with filling in Superman's gap years (after leaving Smallville, before working at the Planet).

The story that introduces Lori Lemaris ("The Girl in Superman's Past!" Superman 129, May 1959), for example, told how Clark met the mermaid in his senior year at Metropolis U. In the early seventies, for a brief time, there was a back-up series in Action (back when Murray Boltinoff was editor) that told tales of Clark's university days (presumably during his freshman year). And then in the early eighties a series called "Superman: The In-Between Years" appeared as a back-up in rotation with a few others in the Superman mag.

This last series was written by Bob Rozakis and pencilled by Kurt Schaffenberger, with an assortment of inkers, and it began to tell what happened after the deaths of the Kents and after Superboy left Smallville, chronicling Clark's early days as a freshman at Met. U. Along with Clark, in the cast of characters were Lana, Clark's dorm roommates--Ducky, Dave, and Tommy--Lt. Henderson (not yet an inspector), and reporter Perry White (not yet an editor at the Planet).

Rozakis managed to tell only a few stories before the series was cancelled along with the other back-ups to make room for full-length Superman stories. But Rozakis wouldn't give up on his idea and campaigned for a mini-series, finally getting his second chance with The Secret Years.

Unlike "The In-Between Years," this series skipped forward a couple of years to Clark's junior year at Met. U. By this time Lana had left for Hudson University (resolving a continuity conflict left over from a Lois Lane story that had Lana graduated from Hudson--I guess H.U. had a better broadcast communications program).

Clark's roommates are still around (although Ducky would suffer for being in a Rozakis cast of characters), as are Bill Henderson and Perry White (still a reporter, working for his editor George Taylor), but the first issue introduces a new character to the cast--Billy Cramer (no, not Billy J. Kramer, who sang all those British Invasion hits like "Little Children" and "I Call Your Name"--this is Billy Cramer with a 'C'). Billy is two years behind Clark and newly arrived at M.U. from Smallville.

This time around, instead of pencilling, Schaffenberger is inking over Curt Swan, offering a bright, handsome looking series, with only a few technical glitches. Although Rozakis had several sidelines at DC as a writer, assistant editor, and Answer Man, his actual chief occupation was as DC's production manager. In this capacity he oversaw several experiments with new printing processes during the eighties. The Secret is part of a pilot project that had Spartan Presses using flexographic printing. Cheaper than offset printing, but more expensive than the traditional practices, the flexograph presents much clearer inks for the most part and intense colours. As this process was still in the experimental stages, there are some technical snafus when the colour doesn't come out as intended or the inks are smudged, but on the whole it looks quite impressive.

And Frank Miller did all the covers, by the way, although they have virtually no relation to the actual contents of the series. Although maybe the Miller covers should have given me a clue...

In my mind I associate Bob Rozakis with fun upbeat material. Most of his work was lightweight and I liked that about him. He wasn't a Denny O'Neil or even a Martin Pasko, he just delivered good entertainment that made a sunny afternoon that much brighter. So going into this series--with Rozakis, Swan, Schaffenberger, and bright colours--I'm already thinking this is going to be a lot of fun!

Maybe this reputation for upbeat, lightweight fare dogged Rozakis. Maybe he yearned to be taken seriously--and as comics moved in a more deadly earnest direction in the eighties, this might've been a genuine professional concern if Bob wanted to snag more writing assignments. He definitely seems to be out to prove himself with The Secret Years. This is the only explanation I can come up with for why this mini-series is so downbeat and depressing.

Clark is positively a downer--yes, his parents died three years ago, he's got a right to cry, but does he have to remind everyone of his sorrow constantly? He treats Billy Cramer with utter contempt and indifference, while the young fellow follows him everywhere and would do anything to prove his unabashed friendship. Finally Clark does make a true gesture of friendship toward Billy by revealing his identity as Superboy. But this only motivates an absolute tragedy that I find, as a reader, to be irredeemably devastating.

Superboy gives his young friend a whistle--a whistle which releases a high pitched sound that only he can hear (even from a great distance). In the series' most agonizing and torturous scene, Superboy goes off to save an island of nameless people from certain death, while at the same time Billy Cramer self-lessly goes into a burning building to save others only to become trapped in the fire himself. Yet Cramer has absolute faith in his guardian angel and repeatedly blows the whistle in vain hope that Superboy will save him. Meanwhile, Superboy continues with his mission to save the islanders, but uses his vision powers to look in on his endangered friend. He puts off saving Billy until the islanders are quite safe, and then flies off to the burning building. But Billy Cramer is dead--Superboy watched him die and did nothing to save him until it was too late. Billy's faith in his hero proved to be the harbinger of his own doom.

posted March 03, 2002 04:31 PM    

Now there's a lot of death in comics that I can deal with. I can deal with the heroic deaths of Jor-El, Lara, Jonathan, Martha, and Quex-Ul. But this death of Billy Cramer, I just can't deal with it. The devastation is too great. The failure of my hero, Superman, is too monumental. It is simply more than I can stand.

It proves indeed that Bob Rozakis was a great writer, but I wish to God he had never written this story.

Somehow, after suffering for months through the agony of his great failure, Clark manages to get on with his life. We're supposed to believe this life lesson is what finally made Superboy a SuperMAN. Me, I'd've killed myself. But being Superman means you accept that your friends and family may die while you go off and save the world.

Oh, and Perry White becomes an editor at the Daily Planet.

My major complaint about the series aside, there's a lot of nice little touches I like. Little references to other stories (like George Taylor being Perry's editor). Lex Luthor offers a challenge to Superboy in the final issue, and the manner in which he delivers the challenge and the challenge itself remind me of the "Showdown Between Luthor and Superman" from Superman 164, Oct., 1963 and I'm sure Rozakis intended this as a bit of foreshadowing of that ultimate Super-Duel on far-off Lexor.

posted March 03, 2002 05:05 PM    

In Action Comics 544, June 1983, Lex Luthor returned to Lexor one last time. This awesome 45th anniversary celebration, by Bates and Swanderson, was intended to revitalize the Luthor character--George Perez even designed the new battle suit for "Luthor Unleashed"--while the second story in this super-sized edition, by Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane, rebuilt Brainiac as a Big Head robot. I do treasure this comic and it's so moving to see Luthor with his wife, Ardora, and their son (Lex, jr.), but it's too sad as Lexor is destroyed and no one survives but Luthor and Superman.

Of course, Luthor blames Superman for the destruction of his adopted planet (like Krypton, Lexor's unstable core unleashed a world shattering explosion).

And so Heroes Against Hunger finds Lex still intent on destroying the Man of Steel. Meanwhile, Superman and Batman are trying to save Ethiopia. Fustrating their attempts at a solution to the famine crisis is an alien called the Master, who craves the wide open spaces. He gains great strength "in places that once supported life, but now have died" (as he tells Superman on an Infantino and Anderson illustrated page).

Superman knows that Luthor has returned to the Earth, once again, and is hold up in his Atlantic Ocean lair, but the Man of Tomorrow hasn't yet bothered to apprehend the scientist because some of Lex's ongoing experiments may prove useful to humanity.

Given that Luthor hates Superman beyond all reason, Batman is sent to talk Luthor into helping with the Ethiopia problem. The Caped Crusader appeals to Lex's vanity--wouldn't it be great to succeed where Superman has failed! As we know, Lexor was once a barren planet, hardly able to support life, before Luthor arrived and made it a lush garden--maybe the same science can stop the famine in Ethiopia. Together Luthor, Superman, and Batman take on the Master, finally defeating the alien, leaving Lex free to use his super-science on the lifeless Ethiopia fields. But what worked on Lexor isn't worth diddly squat on Earth, in Ethiopia.

And so the moral of this for charity project is that there can be no quick-fix solutions to the problems of Ethiopia. It'll take dedication and money and many years, but it can be done if we all lend our support. "The responsibility rests with all of us."

To list the over one hundred talents that contributed their efforts to this comic book would take too long, but Neal Adams and Dick Giordano did the cover, Gaspar Saladino did the logo, Bill Sienkiewicz did the back cover, while Starlin plotted it and Wrightson assisted him and did the charcter designs.

Okay, I'll give credit where it's due for one page--Gerry Conway writer, Barry Windsor Smith penciller, Jeff Jones inker, Todd Klein letterer, and Tatjana Wood colorist--page 27, when Luthor sees some famine victims and under his breath he says, "Dear God...How could you allow...? ...The Children..."

posted March 03, 2002 05:27 PM    

In a similar vein as Heroes Against Hunger, "When It's Raining, God is Crying!" lends its efforts to the special cause of missing children.

Like Bob Rozakis, Joe Orlando wore several hats during his days at DC--editor, illustrator, creative director--here he's the colorist (he also contributed his colours on some of the Heroes Against Hunger pages). This is your standard no-frills comic printing, no big colour effects here, but Gray Morrow doesn't need that. Orlanda lets Gray breathe. The colours underly the illustration, they don't compete for attention.

If anyone wanted to argue with me that the technologically deprived comics of old were inferior to today's sophisticated, enhanced comics, I would just to have to hand them these two issues. The weaknesses of the cheaper printing process are turned into strengths by Morrow and Orlando. No comics printed today can quite get that faded colour of the old comics and without that gentle coloring, the true beauty of Morrow's line work would be lost in a storm of saturated colours.

Sometimes Mindy Newell's story comes across as too preachy (part of the burden of being a charitable project), but the moments I like best are the little scenes of human interaction. I love Lana, Jimmy, and Lucy in this. Unlike The Secret Years, not all of my emotion is invested in the lead character. Lois is free to have her selfish indifference to the feelings of others, such as her sister, because Miss Lane is just one of many characters. She has her faults, so do we all. Me, I identify more with Lucy or Jimmy--they have big hearts.

I haven't said too much about the plot. The plot here isn't really important. Lois sees the dead, mutilated body of a child, and she is so profoundly affected that she pursues her story to the exclusion of all else, ignoring her friends and family, wallowing in her grief, forgetting that other people have problems, too. As in real life, nothing gets resolved, and there's no Superman here, no deus ex machina make everything better.

posted March 03, 2002 05:43 PM    

If that's what readers really wanted.

Which is what I meant when I alluded to a downside much earlier. Personally, I think I wouldn't have gone along for the rest of the journey. Truthfully, I like the fun Superman. I didn't need Kandor to be enlarged or Lexor to be destroyed. The myths worked just fine for me as they were. A little bit of realism, a touch of tragedy, made the stories work. But I didn't need more.

In a way, I like that MY Superman had an ending. Because now there's this place I can visit which exists unto itself, and it's a fun place to be. The spectres of today's malevolent comics don't intrude there.

But for all that, I would still prefer that Crisis and the Byrne solution never happened, if only for the sake of E. Nelson Bridwell's soul.

Bridwell died in 1987. He had lived just long enough to see everything he had built up, everything he had dedicated his life to, torn down by the uninventive efforts of Byrne and his cohorts.

posted March 03, 2002 11:47 PM    

quote:

---

India Ink wrote:

Finally Clark does make a true gesture of friendship toward Billy by revealing his identity as Superboy. But this only motivates an absolute tragedy that I find, as a reader, to be irredeemably devastating.

---

This scenario is based on one of my favourite Superboy stories, written by Leo Dorfman and drawn by the incomparable George Papp, entitled "Superboy's Best Friend." (Late 1950s.)

One stormy evening at the home of the Kents, Clark is spending time with a friend, Jack, when Ma Kent asks if Jack would like to stay for supper and maybe stay the night. Jack is keen, but Clark protests and comes up with an excuse why Jack can't stay. Ma Kent had forgotten that Clark cannot have friends over to stay because he must perform nightly patrols, handle emergencies, etc. as Superboy. Clark is actually very upset at seeing Jack leave and wishes he could have close friends like all the other boys.

At midnight, Superboy is in the air, thinking: "All my classmates have been asleep for hours...never dreaming that I, Clark Kent, am flying above their homes, protecting them from danger!"

posted March 04, 2002 12:32 AM    

The next day after school, near the lake, a few boys from school invite Clark to go swimming. Clark is wearing his Superboy costume under his civilian clothes, and he realises he can't undress to go swimming, so he declines -- to the derision of the other boys.

"The fellows think I'm a snob! Little do they know how much I'd like to be friends with them!"

A sad Clark walks back to town in time to see a boy faint from the heat right in the path of an oncoming bus. Clark stops the bus secretly and and helps the groggy boy to his feet. In Pa Kent's store, Clark gets the boy a cool drink. The boy introduces himself as Freddy Shaw who's just moved to Smallville and is attending Smallville High.

The following day in school, Freddy finds himself seated next to Clark due to a transfer. "Isn't that luck?" says Freddy. "We even have the same lunch hour!"

"That's great," says Clark. "We'll be able to spend a lot of time together!"

A week later Freddy misplaces his briefcase, and is afraid his step-brother will punish him. Clark offers to look for the briefcase and finds it with x-ray vision. Freddy is overjoyed when Clark presents him with the briefcase, and says, "I don't know what I'd have done if you hadn't found it! You're a real friend!"

"Friend?" thinks Clark. "Gosh, Freddy's right! That's what we are now! Friends!"

Another day Freddy gives Clark a baseball autographed for Freddy by Babe Ruth. He calls Clark his best friend, and Clark is extremely happy to hear this.

The friendship grows, and one day Freddy confides his greatest secret, a secret he has kept for many years, the fact that his step-brother is racketeer Joe Shaw, an ex-convict. "You're my best friend, Clark! I want you to know all about me! What's friendship worth if you can't share secrets?"

Clark spends the night thinking of the implications of this.

The next day, Clark performs a super-feat to reveal to Freddy that he is Superboy. Freddy realises that Clark/Superboy must have stopped the oncoming bus, saving his life the day he fainted. He is suitably impressed at finding out who his best friend is in his other identity.

The weeks roll by as Clark and Freddy become very close friends. Clark makes a "Freddy robot" which astonishes Freddy. Freddy winks at Clark when Clark arrives late in class due to attending an emergency as Superboy. Clark thinks: "It's good to have a friend who knows your secrets!"

posted March 04, 2002 03:40 AM    

Freddy is having more fainting spells, and on one occasion Clark flies Freddy home. Clark says, "...You should see Doctor Kenyon to learn why you get these fainting spells!"

Despite this, Superboy and Freddy have the whole world, and even the moon and outer space, as a playground.

One night Superboy apprehends two criminals, and it turns out one is Joe Shaw, Freddy's ex-con brother. Joe threatens Superboy, telling him that if they are captured, Joe will tell the whole world that Superboy's secret identity is Clark Kent.

Superboy is shocked to discover that Freddy has double-crossed him, but he grits his teeth and takes in the two crims anyway.

The next day at school, Clark gives a puzzled Freddy the super-cold-shoulder. "You told your brother my secret! Now he's going to reveal it to the world!"

Freddy is weeping. "But it's not true! I'd die before I'd tell anyone about you! You must believe me! I don't know how Joe found out about it!"

Clark walks away. "Forget it! I don't want to speak to you again! Our friendship is finished!"

That evening, Clark gets a call from Dr. Kenyon. Freddy is seriously ill and is calling for Clark. At Freddy's house, Clark finds Freddy in a delirium, and in his semi-conscious raving he is saying that Clark Kent is Superboy. The doctor puts this raving down to the illness, but Clark asks to be alone with Freddy.

He switches to Superboy and the bright costume colours shock Freddy back to consciousness. Freddy asks for Superboy's forgiveness: "I kept one other secret from you... my incurable brain fever! B-but I never told Joe about your secret!"

Superboy: "I know, Freddy! I've done you a great wrong! You must forgive me!"

Freddy dies while Clark is at his bedside, and Clark realises Joe must have overheard Freddy's feverish ravings.

This is really the end of a great story; but as an epilogue, Superboy uses a Clark Kent robot to clear up the secret identity matter.

* * * * *

posted March 04, 2002 04:10 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:

3. Phantom Zone

---

An excellent review.

quote:

---

One of my favourite scenes, from the fourth issue, beautifully rendered by Colan and DeZuniga, is both twisted and evocative as it shows a young shepherd named Gerard Amateau, out in the pastures of provincial France. He spies some "clothing hidden in the grass. Then he hears a female voice--singing--a song he has never heard, in a language he has never heard.

---

Yes -- a really good scene. And a bit on the disturbing side.

quote:

---

Jer-Em no longer wishes to exist in any of these tainted realms--Earth, Phantom Zone--but rather to go to Rao. And so he hugs a lump of Green Kryptonite to his body. Az-Rel and Nadira, the two disaffected youths, happen upon the old zealot in his dying moments. Az-Rel hungers for death herself and joins the old man, and in her dying moments unleashes her psychic pyrotic power (the ability to make people spontaneously combust), consuming Az-Rel in flame.

---

You must've been getting tired by the end of that review. Az-Rel is the male of the pair. Nadira is the female. She didn't hunger for death. She was repulsed by the kryptonite, but Jer-Em pulled her into it. Az-Rel the male ran away, even though he knew he should try to save her. He was the one with the pyrotic power. The female, dying from the kryptonite, attacks both Az-Rel and Superman with her power to disrupt the central nervous system. This attack on the male triggers his own pyrotic power, and he burns himself to death.

quote:

---

Moreover this series is one of the best illustrations of just how much could be done with the Superman mythos given half a chance. It shows all that potentiality that was never entirely explored.

---

I totally agree.

And now... Green Lantern

posted March 05, 2002 05:50 PM    

It's just that there are all those thousands of people out there--people Clark doesn't even know--who need his aid, so he supposedly has to sacrifice the life of one individual (albeit a friend and a hero) for the sake of the many. The ol' Star Trek conundrum.

In reality this is a probable scenario. But Superman shouldn't be totally set in reality or else we'll start applying certain logic to the whole fantasy and soon none of it will make sense.

In our fantasy, Superman sits down to table with people all the time and enjoys their friendship, when in fact there are always thousands of people around the world in danger. In reality, Superman would never ever rest, would never have time for friendships.

Not that there aren't the occasional stories that present this situation. But in most cases, Superman is entirely unable to save the friend (in your example the friend has incurable brain fever), or Superman is brought to the brink of almost not saving the friend but manages to pull it off just in time, or Superman loses the friend but manages a miracle anyhow. Superman's saving Lois in the first movie is a perfect example of this last situation.

In the Cramer situation, Superboy just seems to accept the fact that there is nothing he can do for Billy, he has to save the islanders first and if that means letting Billy die then so be it. If Rozakis had at least shown Superboy trying to come up with some means of doing both, but ultimately failing, then Superboy would seem more the hero he is.

Of course the obvious answer to the Cramer problem is hidden in the Superboy story that you have reviewed Aldous (I wonder if it was reprinted in Four-Star Spectacular...). Superboy just had to send one of his robots to save Billy! Now Rozakis could have complicated the story by having the robot go on the fritz and thus Billy dies--in such a plot development Superboy would come off as still respectable even though he ultimately failed to save his friend.

posted March 05, 2002 05:58 PM    

Yes I goofed up on the names. I knew Az-Rel was the guy, and Nadira the girl. I was even thinking to myself--now don't go mixing up the names... But I did anyway! If I re-read my post just one more time, maybe I would have caught the error.

posted March 06, 2002 02:02 AM    

quote:

---

India Ink wrote:

But you see where that story is great and where the Billy Cramer scenario fails. Superboy is incapable of saving his friend in the first story, but in the Cramer story he is capable.

---

Yes, I see what you mean.

quote:

---

It's just that there are all those thousands of people out there--people Clark doesn't even know--who need his aid, so he supposedly has to sacrifice the life of one individual (albeit a friend and a hero) for the sake of the many. The ol' Star Trek conundrum.

In reality this is a probable scenario. But Superman shouldn't be totally set in reality or else we'll start applying certain logic to the whole fantasy and soon none of it will make sense.

In our fantasy, Superman sits down to table with people all the time and enjoys their friendship, when in fact there are always thousands of people around the world in danger. In reality, Superman would never ever rest, would never have time for friendships.

---

You are absolutely right. It's something I've thought about often through the years, and yes -- a few stories have explored the theme. Superman is, after all, a man, not a machine... and he's an emotional man. He is not a creature of cold logic. Even Spock, who would dearly love to think of himself as a creature of cold & pure logic, is far from it. Kirk would lay down his life for the life of Spock, and Kirk would allow many others to die to save the life of one (Spock). The love you have for your friend is the love that can move mountains, but it is also the love that can defy reason. If your wife is in mortal danger, but across the street are a dozen other people about to die, whom you can save, you will run to your wife! Every time! That is human, and that is right. I don't believe, necessarily, in a "logic" above human emotion and love.

Rozakis had it all wrong. (Maybe you've already said this in a roundabout way.) If a hundred people were about to be killed in Outer Mongolia, and Lois Lane was falling from a cliff, and Superman has a second to decide who to save, he will fly to Lois every time. He would do what almost any man would do.

Bob Rozakis wrote several stories that I'm aware of that showed complete ignorance of Clark Kent the Man.

posted March 06, 2002 02:11 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:

By the way, the Phantom Zoners use the power battery as their direct energy source for the huge outer space projector. I think this shouldn't be possible. If Schwartz had been editing the book, he likely would have had Gerber rewrite this part (using GL's ring to access the power battery, perhaps). But Dick Giordano was the editor and probably wasn't up on his Green Lantern lore.

---

Yes. Good point. I did think it a little odd when I re-read the saga.

posted March 06, 2002 07:24 PM    

While Giordano worked as an editor on quite a few DC heroes, and was (as I recall) the editor on the Batman books around this time, he hadn't had any real editorial experience up to this point with either GL or Superman.

So why was he the editor on this series? Well, I think Giordano had established a good rep with creators in general, including those who might be "outsiders" at DC like Gerber. And Gene Colan was already doing Batman for Giordano.

posted March 07, 2002 12:02 AM    

In the Neal Adams-Denny O'Neil GL-GA stories (forgive me if I don't go hunting for the issue in question), wasn't Hal having doubts about his oath at some stage, due to dissatisfaction with the management on Oa -- and he was considering dropping the oath altogether?

posted March 07, 2002 12:10 PM    

This issue starts with Superman diverting the path of a planetoid from its collision course with an inhabited planet. He also has to hurry to make an important appearance as Clark Kent which leads him to think "Sometimes I wish I could really be both Superman and Clark, living each of my lives without having the other to worry about". Back in Metropolis, Clark Kent is covering the annual Superman Day festival when he's asked by a collegue where Superman is. "I thought you two were pals!". "Not really..." responds Kent who thinks "funny... he's the third person who's come on to me like that! Where do they get the idea I'm some sort of expert on Superman?". Clark becomes more critical of Superman when he writes an article on his non-appearance yesterday explaining that Superman should keep in touch with the people he spends so much time protecting. While arguing this point with Perry White, he's interupted when the teletype reports that the Atomic Skull has broken into Star Labs. Instead of running to cover the story, he inexplicably runs to the store room and pulls open his shirt. "Whatever made me do a dumb thing like that?" he wonders as, across town, Superman is facing the Atomic Skull. He's unable to stop him though as he has to save Lois who is attempting to cover the story.
Lois: Thanks for saving my life -- again! Hope I haven't used up my quota yet?
Superman:It's nothing to joke about! Your interference allowed the Atomic Skull to escape!
Lois: I was just doing my job, Superman! You know that!
Superman: And my job is stopping madmen like the Skull! Let me warn you Miss Lane -- someday if I'm forced to choose between life and property endangered by a super-villain and one reckless individual...that individual with have to be sacrificed!

Clark is baffled when Lana Lang questions what's gotten into Superman recently. "And to think when we were kids, I used to believe that you were Superboy!" "You thought I...was him?" "I was always trying to prove it remember...?" "That's funny -- How could I forget a thing like that? You really thought that I --?".

Clark then is troubled by the fact that he has no memory of composing any of the Superman stories which appeared under his name in the Daily Planet. He can't even recall where he was when these stories were taking place. He experiences strange dreams of knocking a planetoid out of its collision course and flying through space. He wakes up and puts on his glasses, which for some reason, doesn't affect his vision in the least. Her stares into the mirror and sees Superman staring back at him.

He gets Jimmy to call Superman that day and Superman, who is doubting whether his 24 hour a day watch over Earth is enough, tells Kent that he's pressed for time and this had better be important. Kent tells him that in deflecting the path of the planetoid at the start of the story, Superman knocked it into the path of that inhabited planet's moon which will have the same disasterous results. Superman tells him that he would never make a mistake like that but Kent pleads with him to run the figures through his mind and see. Superman sees that Kent's telling the truth.
Superman: But how could you have possibly known this?
Clark: Because, bizarre as it may sound, up until a few days ago...you...(removes glasses fixes hair)...and I...were...(turns to face Superman) the same person!

Meanwhile Jimmy runs into the room and tells Superman that the Atomic Skull has taken over a Star Nuclear reseacrh facility in California and is threatening to cause a meltdown which'll kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. Superman tells Jimmy that he can't save them. He has to go into space and save the billions on that other planet. Kent announces that "I'll stop the Skull!"

posted March 10, 2002 05:25 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by BruceWayneMan:

Superman(whisper): --I couldn't save them.

---

posted March 10, 2002 05:08 PM    

I'm not saying that the PZers couldn't have used the battery as they did--I don't know enough to make that claim--I'm just saying if you allow that possibility it opens up a whole can of worms for other GL stories.

posted March 11, 2002 06:05 PM       

So I finally completed collecting my 1982-83 "Superman Split Into Two By Satanus And His Wife" story arc. I've got the whole shebang. But I also picked up Adventures of Superman #425, 427, and 428, and I have to hand it to Marv Wolfman: that guy REALLY knows how to roll with the punches.

Marv Wolfman versus Marv Wolfman.

The Action Comics he wrote in the early eighties were pretty good. As far as I could tell, the tone in Action seemed to be a little less light-hearted (read: goofy) than the Maggin work on Superman. This is not to say that it didn't follow the storytelling conventions of DC at the time: very straightforward storytelling and heavily expository dialog. However, Wolfman's Action brings the love rectangle (i.e., Lana likes Clark, Clark likes Lois, Lois likes Superman, Superman likes his space) into things more than I've detected in Superman. Superman and Lois are actually stuggling with each other, in an adult, but albeit emotionally improbable way. I like these comics, and they are some of my favorites.

posted March 11, 2002 11:16 PM       

What REALLY Happened To The Man of Tomorrow.

posted March 12, 2002 04:21 AM    

quote:

---

Village Idiot wrote:

...Superman talks to himself and he calls himself "Clark."

---

I don't have the book you're talking about, but anyway --

posted March 12, 2002 11:53 AM       

I think that post-crisis, Superman definitely would be expected to refer to himself as Clark, since Byrne drove home the fact that Superman essentially was Clark. However pre-crisis, Clark Kent seemed to be more his secret identity. If Superman were to refer to himself pre-crisis(while being Superman), I would be more inclined to expect him to call himself "Superman."

I brought this point up to illustrate the change in approach to writing the character that one creator, Wolfman, was able to adopt rather successfully (and for me, a little suprisingly).

I suppose the suggestion could be made that since Wolfman's Action Comics tended to be a little more sophisticated anyway, perhaps he was chomping at the bit to write in the post-crisis manner. Perhaps the Byrne Superman was his version more fully realized. This is heavy supposition, mind you. Wolfman does have a website, maybe I'll ask him.

posted March 12, 2002 04:19 PM    

------------------
Ink's links:

for Book of Oa--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003755/http://www.glcorps.org/

for DC golden age sites--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003755/http://www.best.com/~blaklion/dc_links.html

for Superman--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003755/http://www.stta.nu/

for Superboy
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003755/http://www.superboy-lives.com/

for Superman in the 70s:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003755/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/004040.html

posted March 13, 2002 01:20 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
[B]Hey Aldous, when can I expect to read the rest of your review of "The Skyscraper..." story, over on the 70s thread???[B]

---

posted March 15, 2002 11:09 PM    

quote:

---

Progenitor wrote:

its my understanding that the power battery is (dont quote me) s link to the Great Power Battery on Oa, the ring is a link to the power battery. The ring is the only means to harness the power within the battery, GL has the will to use the ring, but the power battery is still overflowing with POWER and the Zoners hooked up a BATTERY to the PZ projector.
You couldnt take the battery and strap it to a living being because they cant harness it, the ring harnesses the power. So apparently using kryptonian tech, the Zoners wwer able to hook it up to the PZ projector

---

We know Hal can't use the power battery as his working power source or there would be no need for him to have the ring to draw off 24 hours of energy. So I ask, if a bunch of exiled Kryptonians can figure out a way to harness the power directly from the battery, why can't the Green Lanterns (who are experts in using the green energy) figure out how to do it? -- or the Guardians (who created the power batteries in the first place)?

posted March 15, 2002 11:50 PM    

quote:

---

India Ink wrote:

(how much material existence can one enjoy in the Phantom Zone? sex? food? drink?)

---

Not much, India -- but they might be at your house (or anyone's house) tonight, unseen, watching your enjoyment of all three.

posted March 22, 2002 01:28 PM    

Now during the 80s, Superman's favourite meal was boeuf bourguignon. The story begins as a man whose life Superman has just saved asks Superman to dinner as a token of his gratitude. His wife, he says, "makes the world's best boeuf bourguignon". Superman accepts to the delight of the man's wife who calls her neighbour to tell her that she'll never guess who's at her home. Suddenly, she's sucked into the living room by Superman. "I'm so sorry Helen. I was just demonstrating to Martin how I used my section breath to air-lift him ahead of the explosion's shockwaves! But it's just as well -- we don't really want a lot of neighbors coming around to spoil our nice, pleasant dinner, do we?"

As dinner is served, Superman declares that there's "nothing like saving lives to work up an appetite!" as he proceeds to grab all the food at the table at super-speed.
Superman: How guache of me!
Martin: No, no -- it's quite all right!
Helen: Martin and I we're-- er-- both on diets.
Superman: Oh well --in that case--
He then grabs and consumes a pitcher of lemonade with one hand while holding a massive loaf of bread in the other and crams as much food as he can into his face.

A mere second later as Helen and Martin wonder where their serving dish has gone...

Superman: Urp! Oh? I thought that boeuf bourguignon was awfully crunchy! Good thing you weren't reaching for seconds just then, eh? Heh Heh!

As the terrified couple hide in their darkened basement wondering what to do about Superman, Superman appears behind them with his arms around their shoulders and a grin om his face. "Did I hear someone mention my name?"

The next panel shows him sipping tea at sun-up telling the couple about the first time he encountered Luthor. The next panel shows him in the same position but this time it's pitch black outside:
Superman: But the 13th time I fought Luthor was one of the very nastiest! This time, he'd invented a gadget that actually turned me into a...
Helen: ZZZ--UH? Sorry, guess we dozed off...
Superman: Ha! That's one thing about being Superman! You never get tired! But, if you prefer, we can continue this chat in the morning!

When Helen and Martin tell him that they have no guest room Superman tells them "Tut Tut!" and sleeps in mid-air.

Cut to - the couple trying to sleep as a massive RRRUMBLE RUMMBLE RUMMBLE knocks everything in the room off the wall and tables -- Helen: He snores!

Martin decides to put a stop to this and goes downstairs.
Martin: Superman, I --
Superman: Uh -- wha?
Helen hears from her room: THUD! AAUGGH!

She goes downstairs to see an enraged looking Superman holding her husband by the throat with his other fist pulled back ready to strike.
Helen: Superman! Wake up!
Superman: Huh--? Oh...I must've been dreaming about Luthor! You should NEVER wake a sleeping Superman!

The snoring continues into the rest of the night. The next morning Martin's watching television as a breaking story appears on the set as a man has a gun pointed to the head of a hostage. Martin points this out to Superman who's sitting next to him and is spinning a bowling ball on his finger to keep himself amused:
Martin: Look! An emergency! It's a job for--
Superman: --Superman! Right! Keep watching your TV-screen and see how I handle this hostage situation!
Miles away, from out of nowhere, the bowling ball Superman was just twirling drops out of a chimney and knocks the gunman out cold.
Martin: My bowling ball!
Superman: All in a day's work!

posted March 22, 2002 03:14 PM       

Or is MY memory going?

And what's the link to Superman Through The Ages? My old link doesn't work anymore, and I was afraid the site was gone.

Who ELSE besides me was severely disappointed when Julie Schwartz declared a moratorium on continued stories in the Superman titles, and we often didn't even get an issue-length tale? I always thought that policy stopped the new Luthor, Brainiac, and Vandal Savage storylines going on in the books at the time (especially the VS one)...

------------------
VISIT MY SUPERMAN PAGE: http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004042/http://www.angelfire.com/mo3/gernot0/PAGES/Superman.html Thanks! ;)

********************

"General? Would you care to step outside?"

********************

Robin: "Holy Oleo!"

Catwoman: "I didn't know you could yodel."

********************

"When Polly's in trouble, I am not slow! It's hip, hip, hip, and awaaaaay I go!"

********************

posted March 23, 2002 12:52 AM    

quote:

---

BruceWayneMan wrote:
Quite possibly the funniest comic I've ever read is the second story in Action 570 (written by Craig Boldman, August 85) - "The Superman who Came to Dinner"

---

I wish I could read that comic. It sounds hilarious!

quote:

---

the reason for Superman's bizarre behaviour in this story isn't readily apparent

---

What was the reason?

quote:

---

I can't describe Howard Bender's artwork in this story but it constantly shows Superman with an oblivious, cheery grin on his face.

---

posted March 23, 2002 07:27 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
The last link to Superman Through The Ages doesn't work anymore. I've been trying to find a new link, but sofar no luck. As soon as this site is up again I'll put the link here for everyone.

---

Thanks, India.

posted April 21, 2002 09:30 PM    

----by Jim Starlin----

introduction: Is this a new slim tradepaperback collection from DC?

Well I'd like to hope. But no.

However since Marvel has just released a new edition reprinting Starlin's work on their Capt. Marvel--called The Life and Death of Captain Marvel--I got to thinking why not Starlin's Superman in DC Comics Presents?

In the space of a year, DC Comics Presents proudly boasted six Jim Starlin stories in its pages (all with Starlin covers)--from the October 1980 coverdate to the September 1981 coverdate.

I say Starlin stories, but this is a matter for some discussion, since all six stories featured the scripting talents of other esteemed writers, and just what they contributed and what Starlin created I wouldn't venture to guess. Although, I believe that Jim did all of these tales Marvel style--meaning the pictures came before the words.

contents:

DCCP 26 (Oct '80)--w. Green Lantern, "Between Friend & Foe!" (17 pages) Marv Wolfman: script; Jim Starlin: plot/pencils; Steve Mitchell: inks.

DCCP 27 (Nov '80)--w. Martian Manhunter, "The Key that Unlocked Chaos!" (17 pages) Len Wein: script; Jim Starlin & "Quickdraw": art.

DCCP 28 (Dec '80)--w. Supergirl, "Warworld!" (17 pages) Len Wein: script; Jim Starlin/Romeo Tanghal: art.

DCCP 29 (Jan '81)--w. The Spectre, "Where No Superman has gone before," (17 pages) Wein: script; Starlin/Tanghal: illustrators.

DCCP 36 (Aug '81)--w. Starman, "Whatever Happened to Starman?" (25 pages) Paul Levitz & Jim Starlin: storytellers.

DCCP 37 (Sep '81)--w. Hawkgirl, "The Stars, like Moths...!" (17 pages) Jim Starlin: plot/art; Roy Thomas: script.

posted April 21, 2002 10:30 PM    

[b]THE LIFE AND (near) DEATH
of SUPERMAN[b] (cont'd)

prologue: "Between Friend & Foe!"

Marv Wolfman was doing double duty in no. 26--not only was he working with Starlin on this issue's Superman/GL tale, he was also working with George Perez on this issue's preview insert story--a little thing called "The New Teen Titans."

Titans is a subject for another forum (but wierd that Starlin wrote about one set of Titans in the Marvel universe, while Marv wrote about another in DC's). As for "Between Friend & Foe!" it was a modest effort that had Superman taking on an impostor Green Lantern.

It all starts on "The satellite headquarters of the Justice League of America, an orbiting modern-day Camelot where 20th century knights group before the battle is begun..."

Here we find Green Lantern (Hal Jordan) relieving Superman on monitor duty. After the Man of Steel has said his adieus and departed the satellite, GL receives an incoming telepathic call of some urgency from Archon Z'Gmora, the Green Lantern of Cygnus, pleading for the Terran GL's aid.

Which strikes Hal as odd since "Archon's never been all that friendly...not since that matter on Altair-Four!"

After charging up his power ring, Hal pops into a lost dimension in the timestream where the Cygnian is hunched on one of many floating planetoids in this cosmic spacescape. Only it turns out it isn't the Cygnian GL, but an impostor who has taken Archon's form.

The impostor is in reality N'Gon, a big lump of an alien. N'Gon used to "soar through the star studded cosmos as a singular entity...," but when he/it reached the solar system of a green sun, that sun's energy caused N'Gon to divide in two. The two N'Gons instantly hated each other and turned upon one another in fierce battle, but the two found that neither could best the other for they were too evenly matched in power.

So each set off on its own journey through the cosmos, in search for more power with which to destroy the other. This N'Gon "sought out beings possessing incredible power..." and with each being it vanquished, the N'Gon assumed that form of its last victim before moving on to yet another conquest. Until it found Archon.

But the Cygnian GL ordered his ring to destroy itself in the heart of an exploding star before N'Gon could seize that powerful object. Fatally wounding Archon, N'Gon assumed the form and memories of the Cygnian, and with those memories realized that there were other GLs it could trap and hopefully gain one of their rings.

And thus Hal was brought into this trap, and in short order he is felled by N'Gon who obtains the ring of power.

Now, with Hal's memories, N'Gon seeks to conquer the mightiest champion in the universe, the Son of Krypton, the Metropolis Marvel, the much heralded Man of Steel, the Action Ace, the Starchild, he who fights for Truth, Justice, and the American Way, the legendary Superman!

Meanwhile, in Metropolis, the Man of Tomorrow is about to save a man from falling to his death, when suddenly Superman finds himself inexplicably transported from Metropolis to this wierd lost corner of the universe.

Previously, however, when N'Gon struck at the Earth Green Lantern, Hal Jordan was quick enough to separate his astral body from his physical form (Green Lantern readers will remember that Hal sometimes travelled in his astral body to Oa when summoned by the Guardians of the Universe).
And now it is a phantom Jordan who looks on, while Superman has no suspicion that the Emerald Gladiator before him is none other than his friend, Hal.

The real Hal Jordan decides to rejoin his astral form with his physical body, and rises to contradict the false Green Lantern.

The N'Gon Hal tells Superman that he is the true "Green Lantern, in reality Hal Jordan!" But Superman knows that Hal would never disclose his secret identity to Superman where a third party could also hear, and so deduces who the impostor truly is.

But with the power ring at his command, N'Gon is not so easily defeated. Cleverly Superman wraps his cape around his arm, stretching the yellow S shield of the cape over his forearm to fend off the devastating blasts from the impostor GL's ring. (Do I need to say that, due to a necessary impurity, the power ring has no effect on anything yellow?)

However, N'Gon uses the ring to create a planetoid sized chunk of green Kryptonite and, exposed to its radiation, Superman is nearly done for. Yet, good and faithful friend, Hal, though without his ring, hurls a large rock with all his might, which strikes the impostor in the back of the head.

The momentary distraction causes N'Gon to lose his concentration, the will-powered Kryptonite phases out, and recovering Superman lands a punch that sends N'Gon flying off into the cosmos.

Supes hopes that the alien has learned his lesson and will not come back for more, but Hal notes that N'Gon is pretty stupid and will need a few lessons before he/it knows whats good for 'em. Surely, as long as the impostor has the ring, N'Gon will keep trying.

And sure enough the impostor comes back for more. Now the battle is on and Superman doesn't hold back. Using all his strength with one mighty blow, the World's Greatest Super-Hero renders the alien unconscious, and N'Gon reverts to that old lumpy form. Now, Superman easily removes the ring of power from the tendrils of the dormant creature.

But what of the man Superman was about to save when he was teleported to this other dimension? Surely he plunged to his death!

No. Hal knows that this dimension exists outside the regular timestream, and so the two champions of Earth emerge in Metropolis the very moment after Superman was teleported away. A green power-ringed mattress saves the falling man just in time.

--

posted April 22, 2002 04:03 PM    

"With power present in lantern's light,

No force shall stay my hand this night!

Let those who do prepare to fight,

Dare no man challenge N'Gon's might!"

________________

THE LIFE & (near) DEATH

of SUPERMAN (cont'd)

chapter I: "The Key that Unlocked Chaos!"

quote:

---

DC COMICS PROUDLY PRESENTS
SUPERMAN and MANHUNTER FROM MARS

--face-to-face in mortal combat... with the fate of a universe hanging in the balance!

It begins here, in the quiet third floor apartment of reporter Clark Kent--as a far-famed figure strips down to his working clothes...only to suddenly find he has an uninvited audience!

---

In a flash of pink smoke, an orb appears floating in Clark's apartment, and in the orb is the visage of a new nemesis for the Man of Steel, a being who identifies himself as Mongul. Aware of the Kryptonian's great power, Mongul is in reality safely far away, on board his spaceship, transmitting his message over a scrambled signal that Superman cannot trace. The jaundiced giant has made this communication in order to enlist the aid of the Man of Tomorrow "to retrieve an item which by rights belongs to me!"

Kal-El, brash and self-assured, responds, "I'm Superman--not some errand boy!"

Then Mongul plays his trump card, his "three diminutive 'guests'"--Jimmy Olsen, Steve Lombard, and Lois Lane, shrunkedn down and trapped inside a transparent cube which threatens to crush them to death unless Superman cooperates.

Mongul tells Superman that he searches for a crystal key "locked away in an isolated crypt."

Then Superman is instantly teleported to the fifth planet in the star-system of Cygnus. The same system that the deceased GL of the previous issue hailed from (although this is not referenced in this issue's story), while the fourth planet from the sun in this system is "New Mars"--adopted planet of J'Onn J'Onzz and his fellow displaced Martian compatriots.

Superman realizes that this Mongul cannot be up to anything good, but playing for time he goes to the crypt on the barren fifth planet, only to be confronted by his former Justice League friend, J'Onn J'Onzz, who worns Superman off, forbidding him to obtain the crystal key.

Demanding an explanation, Superman listens as the Martian Manhunter relates the history of the key:

Hundreds of years ago there was a race of aliens called the Warzoon (red-skinned, bug-eyed, Khund like beings) who lived their lives of war, conquest, and destruction. In their ultimate effort to make themselves masters of the universe, the Warzoon constructed a satellite of enormous size.

quote:

---

"Nuclear missiles several miles high dotted the satellites surface, flanked by macro-laser cannons capable of incinerating entire worlds...

"Monstrous engines made the satellite mobile, allowing it to traverse space at incalcuable speeds...

"They called this satellite--Warworld!"

---

However, before they could employ their great weapon in their ultimate conquest of the cosmos, all of the Warzoon died mysteriously.

Then another race of alien came to Warworld, called the Largas (tall metallic skinned beings with smooth faceless heads), a peace loving people who discovered the last of the Warzoon seated at the controls of the massive satellite and quite dead.

As destruction was foreign to the Largas, they could not bring themselves to destroy Warworld, but merely reprogrammed its defenses so that no one might enter the satellite again, except by using the sonic vibrations of a crystal key.

The ancient race of Largas, however, were slowly dying off. Over the centuries after their discovery of Warworld, their numbers dwindled until there was but one left.

Realizing that his life would soon end, the last Larga sought out those in the galaxy who might continue the sacred trust of his people. At last he found the Martians of "New Mars," who he believed held the same non-violent philosophy. This last survivor of an ancient race entrusted the crystal key to the care and safekeeping of the Martians--then the last Larga died.

And so the Martians have protected the crystal key since.

J'Onn's tale having ended, Superman is still undeterred in his errand and will stop at nothing to get the key. The two champions fight each other with all the powers at their command. The barren landscape rings with the sound of their devastating blows. Kryptonite-tipped missiles are deployed at J'Onn's initiative, but the Man of Steel deflects them with his super-breath. The fight continues. Superman uses his heat vision to ignite a ring of fire on the ground surrounding them. Weakened, J'Onn continues to struggle, never admitting surrender, but with one final blow the Kryptonian sends his friend crashing to the ground.

Now inside the crypt, Superman obtains the crystal key, and then emerging outside he sees a spaceship the size of a "small city" hovering above the barren surface of the fifth planet. Mongul's ship.

When the brute alien demands the key from Superman, the Man of Tomorrow (with some sorrow) refuses, knowing that he has sentenced his friends to death. From their cube prison, the diminished three urge him to sacrifice them rather than allow Mongul to enslave the universe.

When Mongul attempts to make good on his threat, however, he finds that the controls for the cube have been shattered. Olsen, Lombard, and Lane at once emerge on the planet's surface, full-sized and free.

Believing that Superman destroyed the controls somehow, Mongul flashes his powerful eyebeams at the Man of Tomorrow--sending Superman flying, as the key falls out of his hand.

Mongul bends to pick up the fallen key, as J'Onn phases out of invisibility--for it was he who destroyed the controls to the crushing cube and freed Superman's pals. Now J'Onn launches forward at Mongul, but the giant alien throws him aside. Superman next attempts to wrestle the key away from Mongul, but the merciless alien disappears in a flash, gone without a trace, taking the crystal key with him.

J'Onn J'Onzz now angrily turns on his friend:

"The entire universe...will have to pay the price of your failure! I warned you that you were dealing with forces beyond your comprehension--but you were just too overconfindent--too egotistical--to listen!"

Chastened by J'Onn's remarks, Superman makes a solemn vow, "I'm going to track down Mongul, no matter where in the univers he may be hiding--and recover the crystal key...or die trying!"

next: Supergirl and "Warworld!"

posted April 22, 2002 11:19 PM    

Superman through the ages:
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004042/http://www.stta.nu/

Now on with

posted April 23, 2002 12:19 AM    

quote:

---

DC COMICS PROUDLY PRESENTS SUPERMAN AND SUPERGIRL

--together in an adventure that spans the universe!

They soar through the infinite vastness of space--as if it were their natural element--and perhaps in a way it is!

For their home was a planet light years distant from our own--a world destroyed in a shattering paroxysm of pure primal fury.

And now the galaxy's two greatest defenders hurtle across the void to prevent their adopted planet Earth--and untold other worlds as well--from suffering a similar fate!

---

With her vision powers, the Maid of Steel picks up the sub-atomic particle trail of the nuclear powered Warworld. Supergirl is ready for action, but Superman cautions his cousin to be careful--Warworld is unlike anything they've come up against before.

Then the Man of Steel spots the rogue satellite a couple of light years away. They think that it is passing in front of a dwarf star only to realize that the dwarf star is passing in front of it, and Warworld is larger than the star! Nor does the intense gravity of the dwarf star have the slightest effect on the satellite's trajectory.

Discretely the two use their vision powers to scope out the contents of Warworld--"an armored landscape studded with the instruments of war--all controlled by a vast computer system that forms the artificial planet's core!"

Its vast city is empty, while on at the boundary of the metropolis is a funeral mound of graves--a silent testament to the pervasive death of all the Warzoon.

Then their gaze spies the command console which controls the entirety of Warworld--unoccupied. Next, outside the control room, they spot one other grave. And striding past it, at last, they spot Mongul.

But Superman's gaze is too narrow. Supergirl cautions him to widen his view and look past Mongul. A succession of panels widen out from Mongul, to the city, to a vast background, to finally reveal a warhead that dwarfs the urban landscape.

Meanwhile the alarm systems have alerted Mongul that there are intruders on its perimeter. He takes his seat in the command console and puts the control device over his head, with which his thoughts control all the malevolent machinery of the artificial planet. His mind is expanded, allowing him to see the far distant Kryptonians approaching.

Then Mongul launches into a soliloquy, telling of how he once was overlord of billions on another world--misunderstood by the masses, labelled as a "tyrant." The populace revolted, taking up the cause of "the ancient Arkymandryte who came suffling down out of the mountains..."

Stirring up religious fervour in the people, the Arkymandryte unseated Mongul from his throne. Mongul fled in his spaceship, while the Arkmandryte became an even worse despot than the overlord he had overthrown.

But now Mongul will taste revenge as he becomes ruler of an entire universe!

Rousing from his brief reflection, Mongul launches an assault of massive weaponry upon the daring duo. Standing in the path of one great missile, Superman narrowly escapes its destructive might and realizes that he and his cousin would never survive such a direct blast.

But then he devises a clever plan. "Are you game?" he asks Kara Zor-El. And she answers Kal-El with these prophetic words, " Are you kidding? Who wants to live forever anyway?"

Now the two survivors of Krypton face down a swarm of missiles and a barrage of macro-laser cannons. Time and again they expertly dodge the deadly assault. Provoking Mongul to give full expression to his blood-lust as his mind controls the satellite's vast array of firepower through the comman console.

For Superman has realized that the Warzoon died one by one, as each took his turn utilizing the conrol helmet. One by one they died of a cerebral hemorhage as the command console took its toll. Until the last one, too, died and was discovered by the Largas still seated in the console.

The pain is too much for Mongul, and he throws off the helmet and collapses unconscious to the floor.

Now while he is down, the Kryptonian cousins must take the opportunity to destroy Warworld.

Supergirl flies off a galaxy away. Then abruptly turns and soars at full power directly toward Warworld. And as she traverses the galactic distance she gains in speed, passing light speed, going faster than seems humanly possible. Speeding straight into Warworld--going so fast that its defenses can't detect her, let alone stop her, and speeding straight through the other side, and onward to who knows where.

The Maid of Tomorrow has cleared a path for Superman, who immediately follows after her into the satellite before the defenses can close up the hole--speeding toward the computers and programming Warworld to launch an attack upon itself, directing all of its weaponry inward. Before the great cataclysm of destruction, Superman goes to the control room in search of Mongul, but the alien has gone, and Superman has no time to search for him before everything goes "KWA-WA-WA-WHOOM!"

posted April 23, 2002 01:03 AM    

Anyway let's not waste space with the niceties. It's time for...

chapter III: "Where No Superman Has Gone Before"

quote:

---

DC COMICS PROUDLY PRESENTS SUPERMAN AND THE SPECTRE--

together in a confrontation that will redefine mortality!

---

A brief description really doesn't seem possible for this truly awe inspiring story.

So rather than try, I'll just hit the highlights. The actual comic has to be read to be fully appreciated...

Superman sets out to find Supergirl. He had a wonderful brain in those grand old stories. Already you've seen it put to good use in the three previous stories. This time he uses his mind to calculate the exact trajectory of Supergirl from the Warworld. As soon as the answer comes to him he's off like a shot, following the exact same path.

Superman pushes on at speeds beyond anything he's ever done before (I'd contradict this with a reference to a Cary Bates story, but who wants to slow things down? so let this stand). Past all barriers of time and space he goes, yet still he hasn't caught up with Supergirl.

Testing his endurance, breaking down all barriers, past "the very bonds of infinity!" And here Superman is shown flying through space in the shape of the infinity symbol. Until at last he spots Kara (who is unconscious). And he speeds toward her. Only smack up against an oversized Spectre, hitting him right against the bread basket.

And then talk talk. Argument, argument. Superman was going where no mortals may ever go. Superman is only intent on getting to his cousin. Spectre is unbeatable and Superman can't get past. Cosmic landscapes.

Then the Spectre shows Superman Krypton as it was (all in a cosmic sort of way of course). All the times Superman tried to change the past--save Jor-El, Lara, all his people. But he never could. He grabs hold of the Krypton sphere before him and it explodes in his embrace. Then he sees Jonathan Kent, someone else he could not save. And then the Grim Reaper itself stands before him--Death. "Death is everywhere, child!" it says.

Then Spectre tells Kal-El that even a Superman with all his powers has his limits. Then Superman's dark self appears and the two fight, and Spectre tells Superman to open his eyes--and at last Superman realizes his foolishness.

Then big John Costanza words appear in the heavens before Superman:

quote:

---

And admitting your foolishness is the first step on the path to true wisdom, my son!

---

Then Spectre gives away the big secret, "by pursuing" Supergirl "you risked the destruction of civilizations beyond numbering" because Superman was travelling so fast, shattering so many barriers, "until only one remained...that golden veil beyond which living man may trespass!"

And Superman realizes what he would have done if he had shattered that last barrier between the living and...

quote:

---

Aye, my good and faithful son, know your heart speaks true..and rejoice!

---

And Superman pleads with the Voice for his cousin's life.

And Spectre tells him all he had to do was ask. And Supergirl materializes (sleeping) in the arms of the Spectre. Superman takes hold of her gently and confesses to the Spectre that he has learned "Power for power's sake is utterly worthless! Power is meaningless until it is tempered with conscience!"

Then Spectre is gone and Supergirl awakens and asks her cousin to tell her what happened, saying, "Tell me about it! I've got all the time in the universe!"

posted April 23, 2002 02:49 PM    

Mike Burkhalter: "...'Where No Superman Has Gone Before" was remarkable because it was so different. It had a different style and tone; it did not progress naturally from the two previous issues. Instead, you sort of twisted everything around. Superman's and Supergirl's powers defeated Mongul in # 28, but soon they would be in a realm where physical powers were meaningless..."

Mark LaGasse: "'Where No Superman Has Gone Before' has gone where no comic book has gone before. In clarification: Superman travels beyond the reaches of infinity, presumably to the edges of what we Christians call Heaven. That is probably the best was to describe DCCP # 29 too--its excellence went beyond infinity and, after reading it, we readers were in heaven.

"Superlative is a weak adjective to describe Len Wein's script. It caps off a perfect three-parter. The supercilious, egotistical arrogance displayed by Superman in # 27 was fully and satisfactorily taken care of in this issue. Although the Man of Might was not too overbearing in # 28, I was glad to see him temporarily resume his 'stronger than thou' attitude this month. The Spectre changed all that. In what amounted to a deep psycological drama, the story showed an omniscient Spectre teaching an unreceptive Superman how to use his great powers. Through images of an exploding Krypton, the Grim Reaper's vist to Pa Kent, and finally, Superman's 'dark side,' The Spectre succeeds in his mission to teach Superman some humility.

"What ultimately does the trick, though, is the 'dark side' business. Superman must fight, if you call it that, a representation of his own unrestricted power, one without conscience or remorse. When Superman realizes its mindlessness, he has learned his lesson: 'Power is meaningless...until it is tempered with conscience.'

"All in all, an abnormal story for DCCP, but abnormally spectacular!"

Randy Miller: "It's hard to believe that DCCP # 28 and 29 had the same writer/artist team. A storyline that started out on a typical but competent hero-against-an-arsenal bent ended with the most startling team-up of this or any other year: Supeman and God!

posted April 23, 2002 04:13 PM    

cover:

A FULL-LENGTH NOVEL
________________________

| (DC) COMICS PRESENTS | [50c]
_________________________ALL NEW!

THE ULTIMATE COSMIC CONFLICT NO.36
_________________________AUG.

SUPERMAN AND STARMAN
_________________________

VERSUS MONGUL THE MERCILESS!
_________________________

.

.

.

.

__________________________

A UNIVERSE TORN ASUNDER!
__________________________

first page heading...

quote:

---

Born Kal-El on the doomed planet Krypton, he grew up as Clark Kent on Earth and is now famed throughout the universe as the greatest hero of all time...

SUPERMAN and

Born Prince Gavyn of a far-flung interstellar empire, he was executed as a sacrifice to a stable throne--reborn a hero, he lives on as...

STARMAN

---

Although The Spectre story is probably one of the best Starlin associated stories, for Starlin's Mongul I would pick this one over the "chapters I" and "II." In the team-up with the Manhunter from Mars, Mongul is simply the engine that moves the plot forward. While, other than in his soliloquy, Mongul doesn't get much panel time in the Superman/Supergirl "Warworld" story.

But here with 25 pages to work with, despite the fact that the first part of the tale is mainly given over to Prince Gavyn's story, Starlin really displays the true brutishness of the Mongul character (with the help of Mr. Levitz, of course).

And this version of Gavyn/Starman reminds one more than a little of Starlin's Capt. Marvel. Ditko and Levitz already had made a character who had more than a passing resemblance to Mar-Vell, but with Starlin's full illustrations and a new costume (blue/black with yellow accents, instead of red & yellow) the similarities are compelling.

The story begins on an asteroid graveyard, the final resting place of one hundred and twelve residents--the royal line of those who have worn the "crown imperial." Only Lord Sharakan and Starman are here to mourn the passing of Clryssa, Empress of a Thousand Days and sister to Prince Gavyn.

In revery, Gavyn remembers his sad history. How he was ejected into outerspace (without a spacesuit), so to oust him from the line of succession, leaving his sister as claimant to the throne. But while he was supposed to die, he had certain mutant abilities that prolonged his survival his survival in outerspace. Mn'Torr came and saved him, trained him, gave him his solar powered gauntlets. Then Starman served as secret protector to his sister, with the assistance of Jedian Rikane, security officer to the Empress. While his lady love, Merria, supported her disguised prince.

Then Mn'Torr was sentenced to death by his own people for intruding upon the fates of other lifeforms. And Gavyn inherited Mn'Torr's mystic staff. Meanwhile, when Starman off of Throneworld trying to save Mn'Torr, Clryssa was murdered. And now the prince is about to assume the throne.

Returning to Throneworld from the asteroid gravesite, Starman finds the place in ruin--the result of the destructive rage of a monstrous alien invader, who made off with Merria.

Now Starman takes off through the cosmos in search of his lady only to be stopped by the ethereal vision of Mn'Torr, dispensing wisdom to his student. Giving this cryptic prophesy: "The Crown Imperial shall not survive."

Gavyn sets off again and finds Merria in a lush pasture on a distant planet. But she warns him off, as a monstrous shadow approaches. And Starman now confronts Mongul!

The battle is all too short as Prince Gavyn is no match for one so powerful and he awakens later to find himself diminished and trapped inside one of those transparent cubes (the same prison that held Jimmy, Lois, and Steve back in 27).

Mongul leaves with Merria, while a robotic guard stands watch over the imprisoned Starman. An unknowable amount of time passes, and then a strange and silent visitor arrives, melting the robot and turning off the prison mechanism--freeing Starman who emerges full size again.

Of course the strange visitor is Superman, summoned apparently by Mn'Torr, who told him where to find Mongul.

The two exchange histories and then Starman explains the origin of Throneworld and its interplanetary empire.

The first emperor was Rilsom, the first one to wear the Crown Imperial. He delivered an ultimatum to one world, demanding their surrender. When the leader of that world defied Rilsom, his planet paid the price as it blew up. Under the threat of such power, many other planets soon joined the empire.

Superman thinks that this empire isn't much better than what Mongul intends to create. But Gavyn explains that not all emperors who have worn the Crown Imperial were despots, some made great contributions to the planets under their reign.

The Crown Imperial is the key to power, for in the coronation ceremony it becomes attuned to the thoughts of those who wear it, and that link cannot be severed unless by death.

The two cosmic champions set off through outer space and Superman arrives on Throneworld to challenge Mongul. One big slugfest breaks out--of Star Trek proportions, with Mongul's shirt torn from his chest, revealing his Shatnerian yellow form--until after a few pages Superman is beaten down.

Meanwhile, Starman has entered into the solar system's sun, in search of a crystalline object, the doomsday device controlled by the Crown Imperial.

Having left Superman for dead, Mongul goes into his inner sanctum communication room, where he is in contact with all the leaders of the planets in the empire. He demands their allegiance and announces that first they will go after his old homeworld, striking back at the Arkymandryte who dethroned him, and then they'll take over the universe.

But the leaders will have none of it. As one leader tells Mongul, "According to our sensors, the doomsday machine you emperors have blackmailed us with has been destroyed."

Then Mongul threatens that he will use his own powers to destroy them. But he never realized that all the planets in the system have their own stardrive. They simply leave the system.

Next Superman and Starman confront the big, giant, ugly hairless ape and for a moment Mongul thinks he'll fight them, but then he decides otherwise and goes poof.

Prince Gavyn explains to Superman that he knew it was his destiny to destroy the doomsday device once he saw it, for he recognized its crystalline structure--the same type that Mn'Torr's people used. It must have been them who gave the device to Rilsom. And it was Mn'Torr who selected Gavyn to erase this wrong.

posted April 26, 2002 12:51 AM    

epilogue: "The Stars, Like Moths..."

As realized by Roy Thomas through his script, Hawkgirl (Shayera aka Shiera Hall) is the reason I love this tale so much. Plot wise it's not as grand as the previous tales that Starlin worked on, although the tie-in to Superman's geneology makes it of interest.

Told in the first person, from Shayera's docu-diary, after teasing us with a splash page shot of Superman being pulled into a fiery red sun, the story let's us into the Hawkwoman's world. By rights she should be called Hawkwoman here, since she campaigned for that right over in JLofA a couple of years before this story--the Hawkgirl references must be a chronicler's error.

Shiera gets a call from a male archeologist who wants to talk to Carter, but she keeps telling him Carter isn't there and her credentials are just as good as her husband's, seeing as they work together on everything. But the archeologist is hesitant to talk to her, expressing his wish to talk with her husband.

To quote Shayera

[QUOTE] "What fools these Earthmen be...to paraphrase one of their own more perceptive poets. But perhaps I'm being unfair, since the good professor couldn't have known that, as one originally sent to this planet to study certain aspects of its people, I know more about archeology than most of its Ph.D.'s.

She flies to the Amerindian site where Dr. Irwin Wright (the old archeologist) has found something definetly "not of Earthly origin." Shiera recognizes an inscription on the antechamber that Wright has unearthed--it's Kryptonese although not any sort she's seen before.

She calls in Superman (via JLA communicator) and at night they stealthily investigate in their superheroic identities. Superman recognizes the inscription as being of an older time in Kryptonian history. He then uses his knowledge of Kryptonian architecture to open a secret panel which enters upon a laboratory--a Kryptonian lab as might appear a century before the planet's explosion, but yet in some ways more advanced than even Jor-El's lab.

Then they find a projectron, a 3D recorder, which when turned on plays the image of Var-El--Superman's great-grandfather! Who relates the story of his great discoveries.

On Krypton Var-El developed his theory of the "Universal Solar Energies Storage System," but he was unable to test his theories because of the laws prohibiting such experiments. He then devised a teleportation ray which sent him to Earth, where he became super-powerful of course (although the powers he displays in the flashback seem more in keeping with the 40s Superman--no vision powers or other abilities of that sort).

Var-El built his hidden lab with his powers and created a dimensional device that connected with an X-dimension where the energy of exploding stars passes into and collects there in storage.

Superman opens the iris of this sort of Stargate device and is sucked into the X-dimension and pulled into a fiery red sun. Although, because this dimension collects solar energy from ALL suns, there's also bits of yellow sun energy in there as well, so that Superman is weakened but not yet entirely powerless or vulnerable.

posted April 26, 2002 05:59 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India...
But with the power ring at his command, N'Gon is not so easily defeated. Cleverly Superman wraps his cape around his arm, stretching the yellow S shield of the cape over his forearm to fend off the devastating blasts from the impostor GL's ring. (Do I need to say that, due to a necessary impurity, the power ring has no effect on anything yellow?)

---

posted April 26, 2002 06:10 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:
A brief description really doesn't seem possible for this truly awe inspiring story.

---

posted April 26, 2002 06:43 PM    

For Starlin art, however, DCCP 37 is not the best example. I think issue 36 is the most Starlin of them all. And what is Starlin art? Well for me it's not really professional. I think of the young Chaykin and Simonson when I see artwork by Jim Starlin, and, unlike Howard and Walt, Jim never really matured as an artist. Which might be a bad thing with most artists, but there's something about the fan-boyish nature of Starlin's work that makes me giddy. Or maybe it's because his work reminds me of all the pictures I drew with my ballpoint pen in my school notebooks when I was supposed to be listening to the teacher.

Frank Brunner is a good contrast. His work reminds me of Starlin, too, but where Frank is very professional, Jim is not. And Alan Weiss had an inking style that was very much suited to that Starlin style.

When Starlin gives full play to that fanboy look there's nothing above it--no matter how professional other artists might be. And that's issue 36. Total Starlin.

Whereas 37, although credited to Starlin, only has that look for the first few pages. It seems obvious to me that Romeo Tanghal inked some pages, while someone else or someones else likely inked other pages (Steve Mitchell seems a good guess).

posted April 27, 2002 01:29 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:
....all the pictures I drew with my ballpoint pen in my school notebooks when I was supposed to be listening to the teacher.

---

posted April 28, 2002 05:24 PM    

These days the development from one story A) crystal key to B) warworld would be expected, although this would play out over several months. Superman would go back to Earth after A) and spend his time arguing with Lois and Batman before finally setting off in a space arc loaded with DC characters that other editors had agreed to lend out for the expedition. Then over the summer there would be a major battle with Warworld. Although it's more likely that Warworld would be in our solar system since DC characters don't very often traverse the cosmos these days.

But it's the C) of the plotline that's the kicker. After taking care of Warworld, instead of a mournful episode on Earth as the heroes bury their dead, we get essentially "My Dinner with Andre" in the realm beyond infinity, featuring Superman as Wally and The Spectre as Andre.

And this is THE SPECTRE. In those days the Spectre meant something. He was an agent of the cosmos and so perfectly fit into the story. I would never think about Spectre actually being Jim Corrigan when I read these stories. Yeah, in the back of my mind I knew that there was this other identity, but it wasn't a concern. These days when you see "The Spectre," you think--that's Hal Jordan-- first--and then you think that he has the power of The Spectre. Today's Spectre/Hal does have a lot of these kind of "My Dinner with Andre" talks in his own book, but he's unable to function as THE SPECTRE, wielding cosmic power, without reminding us that he used to be Parallax. So the Spectre can't function as that ultimate agent of the cosmos in the current DC books, because he's overloaded with too much baggage.

posted May 04, 2002 05:49 PM    

------------------
Ink's links:

for Book of Oa--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004114/http://www.glcorps.org/

for DC golden age sites--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004114/http://www.best.com/~blaklion/dc_links.html

for DC indexes (Earths 1&2)--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004114/http://www.dcindexes.com/indexes

for Superman in the Sixties--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004114/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/007889.html

for Superman in the 70s--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004114/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/004040.html

for 80s Superman--
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004114/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum30/HTML/006883.html

posted May 04, 2002 07:23 PM    

Case in point being Luthor's new armour, which first appeared ...

quote:

---

In Action Comics 544, June 1983, Lex Luthor returned to Lexor one last time. This awesome 45th anniversary celebration, by Bates and Swanderson, was intended to revitalize the Luthor character--George Perez even designed the new battle suit for "Luthor Unleashed"--while the second story in this super-sized edition, by Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane, rebuilt Brainiac as a Big Head robot. I do treasure this comic and it's so moving to see Luthor with his wife, Ardora, and their son (Lex, jr.), but it's too sad as Lexor is destroyed and no one survives but Luthor and Superman.

---

posted May 04, 2002 07:30 PM    

And here's my sideways happy face...

posted May 04, 2002 07:52 PM       

quote:

---

From India:
I do treasure this comic and it's so moving to see Luthor with his wife, Ardora, and their son (Lex, jr.), but it's too sad as Lexor is destroyed and no one survives but Luthor and Superman.

---

posted May 05, 2002 01:47 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Village Idiot:
I think the most interesting part of this book is the fact that Luthor can't be good, as if his hate for Superman is like an addiction. When he's living peacefully, even successfully on Lexor, he can't resist going on nighttime rampages against the poor people of the planet. He just can't stop being bad. This makes a very stong case for the argument that Lex is irredeemable, a fact which makes Maggin's conclusion to the Superman/Luthor relationship a little more dubious.

---

Are you talking about the short story Elliot wrote (not illustrated) where Superman and Lex ride off into the (figurative) sunset together?

It is dubious, I agree. Lex's defining emotion is hatred (for Superman). I don't mind Lex and Superman going off hand-in-hand at The End, but I would like to see just how Lex evolved to the point where he can shake hands with his enemy.

A Sunday family movie complete-change-of-character-because-I-saw-a-puppy-dog-get-run-over scenario just won't do. I want to see the evolution. A man can go through hell before abandoning the convictions of a lifetime.

posted May 05, 2002 01:55 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mattbert:
I have always been a fan of pre-Crisis stories but have never picked many PC Supes stories up. I was just wondering what a few good storylines to pick up would be and the issues they are in (i.e. Luthor's new armor).

Oh, and boy are some of you longwinded! ;-)

---

There's a post from G-Man on 'The Ideal Lex Luthor' topic elsewhere on the Superman forum that brings up what sounds like a great, maybe even definitive Luthor story. Interestingly, it also includes LexCorp even though the novel predates the Crisis by several years.

posted May 05, 2002 02:44 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by BruceWayneMan:
There's a post from G-Man on 'The Ideal Lex Luthor' topic elsewhere on the Superman forum that brings up what sounds like a great, maybe even definitive Luthor story. Interestingly, it also includes LexCorp even though the novel predates the Crisis by several years.

---

He's talking about Last Son of Krypton by the aforementioned Elliot S! Maggin. It's a very good novel.

I don't know that I remember a reference to "LexCorp," but maybe it's time I re-read Last Son.

posted May 05, 2002 09:53 AM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by India Ink:
by the way, looks like I'm gonna hafta update the links in my sig--the link for DC Indexes (Earths 1 & 2) was found by using a link provided by Osgood Peabody. But looks like the DC Index is down. If Mr. Peabody is around, hopefully he knows what's up with that.

=>

---

It's up again - I've found it to be intermittently up and down the last couple of weeks for some reason.

posted May 05, 2002 12:14 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aldous:

I don't know that I remember a reference to "LexCorp," but maybe it's time I re-read Last Son.

---

Actually I'm not sure if you'd find any reference to LexCorp on second thought. I've never read it but did read an interview with Maggin in the Wizard Death of Superman Special in which he points out that he came up with LexCorp before Byrne/Wolfman did and made use of it in at least one of his stories. I had assumed it was this one when G-Man mentioned 'dummy corporations', although Maggin's "The Ghost of Superman Future" hints at a future businessman Luthor.

Things would have been so much more interesting if Luthor had become a businessman in 1986 but retained his previous criminal scientist personna - similar to the way he was cleared of all crimes after discovering the cure for cancer in the imaginary "Death of Superman". He could have used his genius to seemingly help mankind, get a full pardon, and then commit crimes but do it in such a way that although both he and Superman knows he's guilty nothing could be proved. Writers would probably resort to dumbing Superman down to post-Crisis levels, but avoiding that its still an idea.

posted May 05, 2002 05:25 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Village Idiot:
I think the most interesting part of this book is the fact that Luthor can't be good, as if his hate for Superman is like an addiction. When he's living peacefully, even successfully on Lexor, he can't resist going on nighttime rampages against the poor people of the planet. He just can't stop being bad. This makes a very stong case for the argument that Lex is irredeemable, a fact which makes Maggin's conclusion to the Superman/Luthor relationship a little more dubious.

---

It just happens that I was reading "The Death of Luthor"/"The Condemned Superman" (Action 318/319, Nov/Dec '64) this morning. In that Luthor (having escaped to Lexor) promises his new wife, Ardora, that if Superman comes looking for him, he will not kill Superman. And this promise means so much to Lex that he doesn't kill Superman, but constructs an elaborate plot that would result in Superman's death.

Although attitudes toward Lex change the further away in time we get from 1964 (either further on or further back in time), I still prefer to think of Luthor in those 1964 terms. As someone who is driven to commit great crimes, yet someone also who has a clear code of conduct for himself. He may not believe in the codes of anyone else, but having so much belief in his own self he has to be true to that code he has made for himself. And this makes Lex a moral man.

I think of King Mark, or other Arthurian characters, who may commit horrible acts yet still belong to a chivalric code. In fact, it seems like a lot of characters in fiction (especially in movies from the 60s onward) may be outlaws yet conduct their lives according to some personal code and therefore are viewed by their audience as "heroic."

From this perspective, it becomes questionable if Luthor actually needs redemption. Since he conducts his life according to a certain morality, he has done nothing which would require redemption.

But the incidents on Lexor, from Action 544, 1983, as they result in the destruction of Luthor's adopted planet and all those who love him, might actually be something that Lex would take on as a personal responsibility. True, he shifts blame to Superman, but at the core of his being he has to know that his own actions contributed to the destruction of Lexor. This is Lex's first "crime" according to his moral code, since he was always self-justified in his previous acts. Lex in 1983, may really need redemption for himself--and that may have tipped the balance for him.

Of course, by this late stage I'm not sure if the writers were really interested in being consistent with the established myths of the Superman legend. There seems to be a desperation in the early eighties, as the inevitable end looms. And it's like one big garage sale as good ol' ideas are sold off. Kandor enlarged, Lexor destroyed, Brainiac transformed...

posted June 10, 2002 04:01 PM    

Saying...

quote:

---

Adding to the Big E's Giant legacy, I now have these two 64 page reprint collections from the early 70s--Superman 227, G-72, June-July, 1970 and Superman 232, G-78, Dec.-Jan., 1970-71.
G-72 is a special All-Kryptonite issue, while, as I've mentioned before, G-78 is dedicated to Krypton itself.

Both provide a lot of legendary info which must've informed the later Krypton tales, and clearly (from my perspective) influenced much later stories--including a few mini-series I mentioned on the "80s Superman" thread--namely these notables:

1. World of Krypton--3 issues (July-Sept. '79); writer: Paul Kupperberg; artists: Howard Chaykin and Murphy Anderson (on 1&2), Chaykin and Chiaramonte (on 3); editor: E. Nelson Bridwell.

2. (Superman presents the) Krypton Chronicles--3 issues (Sept.-Nov. '81); writer: Bridwell; artists: Swan and Chiaramonte; editor: Julius Schwartz.

3. (Superman presents the) Phantom Zone--4 issues (Jan.-April '82); writer: Steve Gerber; artists: Gene Colan and Tony DeZuniga; editor: Dick Giordano.

---

I pointed out various bits of lore that appeared first in those reprinted stories which then were used in the mini-series mentioned above (reviewed some time ago on this thread). I won't go over all that again.

I then pointed out another story "The Wizard City" which is reprinted in Superman 232, G-78.

It just so happened that after reading these Giants, I was thinking about Ambush Bug, because Superman looks a little like Ambush Bug when he gets an ant-head in "The Invasion of the Super-Ants" (reprinted in Superman 227, G-72).

This made me think about the eighties Superman and his silly Action adventures. I was reminded of this post...

quote:

---

Originally posted by BruceWayneMan:
Quite possibly the funniest comic I've ever read is the second story in Action 570 (written by Craig Boldman, August 85) - "The Superman who Came to Dinner" as the reason for Superman's bizarre behaviour in this story isn't readily apparent.

Now during the 80s, Superman's favourite meal was boeuf bourguignon. The story begins as a man whose life Superman has just saved asks Superman to dinner as a token of his gratitude. His wife, he says, "makes the world's best boeuf bourguignon". Superman accepts to the delight of the man's wife who calls her neighbour to tell her that she'll never guess who's at her home. Suddenly, she's sucked into the living room by Superman. "I'm so sorry Helen. I was just demonstrating to Martin how I used my section breath to air-lift him ahead of the explosion's shockwaves! But it's just as well -- we don't really want a lot of neighbors coming around to spoil our nice, pleasant dinner, do we?"

---

and so on...

And I tried looking for that issue in my collection, but with no luck (I guess I didn't buy this one)--however I did find some Ambush Bug stories.

Including one in Action 565. I took this one out of its bag to have a look at it. And to my dismay there was "The Wizard City Warrior"--a sequel to the Wizard City story I had just read in G-78!

This one is by Mort Todd and Kurt Schaffenberger. I posted about it over on the 70s thread, and at the time said that I didn't think Mort Todd really existed, it must be an alias. I speculated that it could be E. Nelson Bridwell, but then Continental Op helped me out of my confusion with this post...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Continental Op:
.

By the way, RE: India Ink's aside in his "Krypton City / Wizard City" review... there definitely is a real "Mort Todd", and it is an alias, but he was NOT the great E. Nelson Bridwell. I don't think ENB ever bothered to use any aliases. It's understandable because I don't think "Todd" (his real name, or another alias was, I believe, "Michael Delle Femine") ever did any other work for DC. He was mostly a cartoonist and editor and was all over the place. He had a macabre, Charles Addams / Gahan Wilson-esque sense of humor ("Mort" and "Tod" are the Latin and German words for "Death"). He first turned up in some stories for Fantagraphics anthology books back in the mid-1980s, as I recall. Later he became editor of CRACKED magazine for a few years and more notably started up a short-lived horror/ humor black and white magazine called MONSTERS ATTACK. I remember seeing those on the stands as a kid but never buying any, and I'd love to be able to find copies now... he managed to get contributions from comics legends like Steve Ditko, Gray Morrow, Gene Colan, John Severin and Alex Toth. In the mid-1990s he was an editor at Marvel for awhile and put together some reprints of their old horror comics. The last I remember seeing anything from him was in the letter column of COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine a while back.

---

Lots of other neat little things appeared in that Action 565. And then there was the Ambush Bug tale--or should that be promo?

Ambush Bug in "$ELLOOUT" (or "Manna from Mando")

Mando was a kind of paper stock that DC used for some of its series, but not the real top quality stuff that was printed on Baxter.

Along with Kieth on this 8 page jape-fest is the usual gang of idiots--wordsmith Robert Loren Fleming, inkpawed Bob Oksner, coloroso Tony Tollin, lettersetter John Costanza, and headshrinker Julius Schwartz.

The premise--and I use that word as loosely as Jennifer Lopez uses the words "I do"--is that A.B. has a mini-series coming up (one of those Mando mock-encrusted monsters) and his advertising firm is floating a couple of their approaches to shilling this rag romp to the natives.

The advertising firm is Peabody, Dicker, and Pending, by the way.

To try and describe the ensuing several pages of savagery would dull even my sharp pencilled wit.

So here's just the headlines:

In Search of Superman Blue, Superman Red!

Here Comes The Inarticulate BUG (and so on with the Kirby--Curby--burst-infested splash page)

In Search of Batman, or pound-wise and penny-foolish!

The Uh-Oh Squad with Blotto

In Search of Wonder Woman, or "Baby I'm a Want You!"

And the seventh page, in answer to "the polar bear in a snowstorm," conjures the idea of "Ambush Bug fighting Marcel Marceau in soundless outer space!"

Finally on page eight, being told that "team books sell," we see a resounding big "NO!" above the Titans Tower.

posted June 14, 2002 12:27 AM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Continental Op:
...As I remember, back around 1984-1986 was a time when DC knew that the Superman mythos was going to undergo a complete overhaul after CRISIS finished, but they were still casting around for the writers to supply it, and John Byrne hadn't been officially signed up yet, let alone finalized any details of what might stay and what might go. Since none of the stories then being published would "matter" soon anyway (to their way of thinking, I suppose)it was decided to discontinue the ongoing subplots and the continued stories, essentially allowing the Superman mythos only to "mark time" while Julie ran down the clock on his editorship. The lost opportunities there have been mentioned in the "Superman in the 80s" thread, of course. But the decision to move back to shorter, standalone stories (especially in ACTION COMICS, which usually had two or even three stories per issue at this time)had another effect. It also enabled a number of writers with a fondness for the Silver Age era (both the Weisinger era AND the slightly earlier reprints from those Annuals and Giants) to have one last shot at telling stories harking back to the style they remembered from their childhood...like "Wizard City". Had the decision not been made to scrap Superman's history soon, it seems unlikely DC would have given them the chance to write in such a "throwback" style, or even to write Superman at all.

Sure, Alan Moore wrote a few Superman tales around this time, and Keith Giffen's Ambush Bug stories probably would have made Mort Weisinger hit the roof. Bates and Maggin were pretty much the same over in SUPERMAN. But this was the exception at the time, at least for the pages of ACTION. Longtime fan Mark Waid got his crack at breaking into DC with his only stories of the pre-Crisis Supes. But more likely, the plots and dialogue were reminiscent of the Superman tales from the late 1940s to mid-1950s, even pre-Weisinger era. Alien invasions were essentially harmless, and thwarted within a few pages. Bridwell and Rozakis, though their style didn't change much from their Bronze Age work, brought back reminders of the goofier, gentler 1950s, like Professor Potter and the less murderous Toyman. Writer Craig Boldman apparently became a favorite of Schwartz's at the time, and he seemed heavily influenced by the late 40s to mid-50s Supes. Boldman's scripts are basically comedies... in fact, Superman sometimes seemed to be living out the screwball comedies of the 1940s and 1950s film world, as played by Cary Grant in a cape. One story featured a charity contest where people on the street had to guess a feat that Superman couldn't do and, for a few pages, he did things like hiccup while standing on his head (and using his powers secretly to thwart pickpockets in the crowd, of course). Another had an ordinary hot dog vendor daydreaming the wacky ways he would use Superman's powers. Yet another had J. Wilbur Wolfingham, the W.C. Fields-esque con artist of the 1940s era, return, and sell the planet Earth to an alien spaceman with a Buck Rogers-ish outfit and crew-cut hairstyle. The word for Boldman's stories is "zany". I think the influence of the pre-Weisinger era Superman (and for that matter, the Fawcett Captain Marvel stories) is plainly seen.

Not that I'm arguing these stories are classics or anything. At a time when CAMELOT 3000, the Wolfman / Perez NEW TEEN TITANS, Frank Miller's RONIN and the like were what DC was pushing, they were probably sales suicide, even on the newsstands where kids were still buying most of the comics. I'm just pointing out that I think the "Wizard City" story was part of a brief, and intentional, trend in the Superman line at the time. Some of those stories are almost painful to read, and some are a lot of fun, but I think they were definitely part of a conscious decision to let some new writers have one last crack at revisiting their childhood memories of Superman while they still had time...

---

This has put a much more positive spin on these books for me. It's actually made me see the stories in a whole new light. It was, in truth, a time when writers could write the Superman they wanted. They were free. That's something, given usually writers have to fit the character to the editor's perceptions.

Take for instance Legends of the Dark Knight. This is a book that SHOULD allow the writers and artists of any given arc to do whatever they please with Batman--they can do Dick Sprang send-ups or Carmine Infantino homages--write about Evol Ekdal or the Duc D'Orterre. You'd think! But fact is they don't. Most have seemed to try and fit Batman into the Frank Miller etched design. Even when Goodwin was editor!

It could be that the writers really only want to do this one kind of Batman. But I'm thinking that they feel some pressure to try and make their Batman fit the prescribed form--what the kids want to read these days.

But how different were the Legends of the "Lame Duck" Action Ace!

Essentially, Schwartz was like Vonnegut at the end of Breakfast of Champions setting his characters free. Or rather Schwartz set the characters under his aegis free to be used as any writer saw fit.

posted June 15, 2002 11:50 AM    

Glad to hear I got you interested in these last few years of the mid-80s Supes. Like I said, they're not all classics, so caveat emptor, but they are something kind of unique.

I don't know how many of these you have, but I would like to point out a few issues I especially remember from this period that I think are well worth getting at a decent price.

ACTION #561 --"The Great Toyman Trivia Contest!" (Bob Rozakis / Kurt Schaffenberger/
Dennis Jensen) Goofy, old-fashioned Toyman story with great Schaffenberger art. Also "The Past and Future Superman!" (E. Nelson Bridwell / Wayne Boring (!)/ Dave Hunt) Red Kryptonite splits Superman into an inexperienced young Superboy and a far-future Superman with different powers.

ACTION #564--"Jimmy Olsen---Blob!" (Craig Boldman / Howard Bender / Pablo Marcos) In a story straight out of the zany pre-Kirby OLSEN series, Jimmy drinks a bad batch of Elastic Lad serum and becomes a shapeless blob. Also a Mxyzptlk story and an Ambush Bug story--all the early Bug stories are well worth getting, of course. The Giffen cover to this issue alone is worth the price.

DC COMICS PRESENTS #87 / SUPERMAN #414 (Elliot S! Maggin / Curt Swan / Anderson & Williamson) "The Origin of Superboy-Prime!" and "Revenge Is Life--Death To Superman!" Maggin is really cooking here in the home stretch, proving undeniably that the Silver Age trappings were still relevant past the 60s and can still be used in a moving and serious way without destroying continuity. Maggin shows us what it would be like for a Superboy growing up normal in the "real" world. The two-parter unfolds with a terrific sense of both wonder and dread. He ends it all with a truly chilling scene, where Superman must return Supergirl's corpse to her parents on Kandor's new home planet. Anyone who says that the Earth-One Superman was hopelessly corny, campy and boring should be forced to memorize this one.

ACTION #573--- "Sale of the Century!" (Boldman / Schaffenberger / Oksner) W.C. Fields-lookalike J. Wilbur Wolfingham "sells" the entire planet Earth to an alien but is shocked to find out that his "mark" has the power to claim the purchase. Superman intervenes. Hilarity ensues, sort of.

DC COMICS PRESENTS #71--"The Mark of Bizarro!" (Bridwell / Swan / Hunt) Bizarro Number One am create some Bizarro-villains for Bizarro-JLA to fight. Him create Bizarro-Amazo, who am give super-powers to ordinary people instead of TAKE powers from super-heroes like real Amazo. Bizarro am need Superman's stupid Earth logic to defeat big menace. Bizarro-Op say, this story am no fun at all and NOT good.

DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL #3--(Roy Thomas / Joey Cavalieri / Gil Kane) Sivana steals the Shazam lightning from Captain Marvel and turns himself into General Sivana, mighty enough to take on the Earth-One and Earth-Two Supermen. Heh-heh-hehhhh!

ACTION #577 (Keith Giffen / Robert Loren Fleming / Bob Oksner) "CAITIFF--Last of the Vampires!" Giffen gets serious as Superman wrestles with some moral dilemmas and confronts a monstrous, but pitiful, villain.

ACTION #579--"Prisoners of Time!" (RJM Lofficier / Giffen / Oksner) Supes goes back in time to ancient Gaul and confronts a thinly disguised version of the Belgian cartoon hero, Asterix. I grew up reading Asterix and this is a nice tribute.

DC COMICS PRESENTS #84--(Bob Rozakis / Jack Kirby(!)/ Alex Toth(!!) / Greg Theakston) Supes teams up with the Challengers of the Unknown to battle a Kryptonian criminal launched into space before discovery of the Phantom Zone. Lots of fun!!

DC COMICS PRESENTS #85--"The Jungle Line!" (Alan Moore / Rick Veitch / Al Williamson) Swamp Thing rescues Supes from a case of nearly fatal Kryptonian Scarlet Fever. What happens when a guy who can split the entire planet open as easily as an apple is suffering from violent paranoid delusions?

SUPERMAN #419--"The Man Who Murdered Evil!" (Maggin / Swan / Hunt) Sort of a thematic sequel to Maggin's "Miracle Monday" novel. Superman's arrival on Earth as an incomparable force for good causes Satan to create an ongoing line of agents who are pure evil. Some disturbing implications in Maggin's last great Supes story.

SUPERMAN #421--"Trapped in Imp-TV!" (Bates / Swan / Hunt) Not Cary Bates at his finest, but worth it to see Superman and Mr. Mxyzptlk trapped in a ridiculous parody of Eighties music videos. (Warning: Perry White in leather glam-rock outfit!)

posted June 15, 2002 01:42 PM    

ACTION #573
DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL #3
ACTION #577 [I think]
ACTION #579
DC COMICS PRESENTS #85

posted June 15, 2002 07:02 PM    

I was chastened. Immediately I seemed to understand that the small value these collectables might have on the market could not possibly compare to the great value I put on them. I resolved then and there to never be reduced to selling off my "babies."

posted June 16, 2002 01:51 AM    

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink:
Meanwhile, there was some comic geek lurking about in the store during this whole episode, and after I left the store (still walking in a funk, unaware of my surroundings) he came up behind me. For a moment I didn't comprehend what he was on about, but then I understood that he wanted to buy these comics off of me, even if Ron didn't. However, my lesson had already sunk in and I wouldn't have let this person have my comics for any sane amount of money.

---

**WHEW!**

posted June 18, 2002 04:58 PM    

The Annuals are actually linked as both are written by Elliot S! Maggin (as well as for other reasons which eventually become clear), these Annuals being:

DC Comics Presents Annual (Superman introduces Superwoman) no. 2, 1983.
Superman Annual no. 10, 1984.

The DCCP '83 Annual introduced Superwoman--a "new" creation of Maggin's (I understand DC wanted to protect their trademark to the name "Superwoman"). On the cover as drawn by Gil Kane she certainly looks dynamic--Kane has seemed to combine elements of design from Green Lantern, The Atom, and Batgirl. She has the sort of hourglass shape around the torso in the cut of her costume as with Gil Kane's Green Lantern design. She has some of the same blue and red elements in her mask, gloves and boots as in Gil's Atom design. And in the way her red hair flows out at the back of her cowl and her blue cape spreads out behind her she has some of Infantino's Batgirl design.

The 41 page story inside ("The Last Secret Identity!") is illustrated by Keith Pollard and Mike DeCarlo, who unfortunately can't quite achieve that same dynamic look (given both these guys were still young up and comers while Kane was a seasoned pro, it's understandable that they were not yet up to that level).

Our story begins at Columbia University in the year 2862, where Prof. Kristin Wells is teaching a class in Early American History (1763-2100). In this class students study history by actually viewing it with their desk screen timescopes. Today's subject is Superwoman who remains an enigma still in the 29th Century. The class discussion leads to the proposition that this mysterious heroine may have had futuristic devices in her employ. The class encourage Prof. Wells to journey back to the 20th century and investigate.

Soon enough, Wells is in the Daily Planet newsroom of 1983, and attaches herself to Lois Lane as a typist for Lane's new book. In her private investigations, Wells finds a Superwoman costume in Lois Lane's closet and jumps to the conclusion that Lois will be Superwoman.

Jimmy Olsen tries to make time with Kristin but she seems disinterested and spends more time with Clark. In hushed whispers they talk--for Clark has met her before (in the novel Miracle Monday).

Meanwhile, approaching Earth is King Kosmos. Like Wells, Kosmos is from the future, but from an alternate timeline. Kosmos sought to make himself supreme ruler of his homeworld, but when overthrown warped through the dimensions of time and space to arrive in our timeline.

When Kosmos attacks the Earth with blasts from his spaceship, Clark changes into Superman and goes into action. Kristin knows that Kosmos is capable of defeating Superman, and she believes that Superwoman should be coming to the assistance of the Man of Steel. But when she insistst that Lois become Superwoman, Lois hasn't a clue, even when Kristin pulls out the super-costume from Lane's closet. Lois tells Kristin that that costume is for Linda Danvers (Clark's cousin) who is supposed to arrive for a party at Morgan Edge's house that night.

Kristin then privately believes that it must be Linda (aka Supergirl) who will be Superwoman. Clark surprises her when he returns to the offices, having travelled back from the sixth century (and Arthurian Britain) where he was dispatched by King Kosmos.

That night Kristin continues to avoid Jimmy's advances at Morgan Edge's party. And Prof. Wells is surprised again when she sees Linda arrive in a different costume (Linda didn't want to wear the Superwoman costume because it would have hid her lovely face, and seriously prevented her from possibly hitting it off with any romantic prospects).

Kosmos' advanced technology detects the presence of Superman somewhere in the sector of Metropolis where Edge's mansion stands. A beam directed at the mansion nullifies everyone inside, rendering them unconscious, including Clark, but not Wells. Kristin then realizes that it is SHE who will be Superwoman! She retrieves the unused super-costume and changes into the Woman of Tomorrow!

She flies off to take on King Kosmos while various Justice League members are being blasted by his advanced beams of nullifying rays. As Kosmos transmits his demands for the surrender of the U.S. of A. over all broadcast media, Superwoman confronts Kosmos and announces "Let History Bear Witness that No American Ever Had to Bow to a Tyrant!"--words which will be remembered for centuries to come.

And in Morgan Edge's home, Clark Kent revives and flies into action as Superman once more, in time to catch Superwoman, knocked out by Kosmos, falling Earthward from the spaceship.

Superwoman tells Superman that Kosmos has sent a nuclear reactor satellite out of orbit to tumble toward Dallas, Texas. She tells the Man of Steel to bring the satellite through a hole in space that she has made with her advanced technology. Superman and the nuclear active satellite tumble into another section of intergalactic space where the device explodes safely.

Flying back through the cosmos to Earth, Superman sees a date and place written in the sky--"Supe--Washington D.C. April 14, 1864--Kris."

King Kosmos has travelled back in time in his spaceship to moments after the assassination of President Lincoln, when pandemonium was in the streets of Washington. Superwoman and Superman manage to defeat the schemes of King Kosmos again, but now he flees through a space-time portal with Superwoman on his heels. And Superman close behind--

quote:

---

Again, Superman does the most difficult feat his powers allow him to do...to muster star-born power to crack the barriers of space and time--using only sinew and untiring muscle to accomplish what the two he follows can do using millennia of advanced technology...

---

Superman dislodges from King Kosmos' grasp the space-time navigator (a remote control device), but as Supe grabs hold of the despot Kosmos pops out, disappearing into the myriad pathways of time.

Next day, Clark Kent arrives at the Daily Planet offices with an exclusive Superwoman interview. In his office, Kristin is waiting to say good-bye as she must return to the 29th century. Jimmy spots the freckle-faced young woman and just when he's about to speak to her, she plants a big kiss on Clark. Then walking out of the offices Kristin dematerializes, travelling back to the future.

After Prof. Wells finishes her latest lecture, telling of her time travels, a student comes up to her at the end of class and asks why she avoided Jimmy Olsen. Answering the young woman, Wells reveals that her great grandmother was the daughter of James Olsen IV!

At the back of this comic, in the text page, Julie Schwartz decided to give the page over to a letter he had got from Maggin concerning this story.

The "Superman Through the Ages" homepage provides this link where you can read the letter in its entirety...
http://web.archive.org/web/20050219004114/http://www.superman.nu/Maggin/superwoman.html

...and I've cut n pasted some of it here...

quote:

---

Well, if you haven't already read the story and you're still with me you're probably one of those people who hates surprises and there's no reasoning with you, so come along.

Julie, I hope you recognize one of the new characters in this story. You've read the name "Kristin Wells" before. She was the nineteen- or twenty-year-old graduate student at Columbia University in the twenty-ninth century who was a major character in my novel, Superman! Miracle Monday. You said you liked the book, so I thought you might like seeing one of its pivotal characters again.

In the book, Kristin is a history student who is so fascinated with one of the unsolved mysteries of Superman's twentieth century that she makes a journey into the past - on a foundation grant, of course, not a student's budget - and finds out the secret of the interplanetary holiday, Miracle Monday. Not only does she discover the joyful holiday's secret origin, but she figures prominently into that origin herself. I continued that theme in Kristin's life with this story by making her come back - as an eminent, seasoned professor now, not a callow student - in order to learn the yet undiscovered secret identity of the mysterious "Superwoman" who appeared in Metropolis in 1983. In this story she discovered, to her own mixed emotions, that Superwoman was none other than a history professor from the twenty-eighth century named Kristin Wells. You'll remember, also, that at the novel's end, the memory of her presence in the twentieth century was wiped from the minds of everyone on Earth except for Superman. So Kristin and Superman are old friends, even though in this story she's a "new girl" in town.

Kristin is not actually as new as she seems. In a previous incarnation, she was a character named Joanne Jaime. That was in one of the last Superman stories I did for you years ago - in a previous incarnation myself - called "The Miracle of Thirsty Thursday." Joanne was a history student from the future who is dismayed when she comes to the past - our time, that is - to investigate a historic event and finds that all the people she meets are other historians doing research along with her. She finds no local color, only observers like herself to pollute the broth. I refined Joanne into Kristin for the novel, and I've tried to make her consistent and engaging for this story. You said you wanted a different sort of new character for your Superwoman, Julie, so here she is. I hope you like her, because I think I'm in love with her.

As for King Kosmos, he's completely new with this story, and he's a baddie all right; a dictator who was overthrown from the rule of a devastated Earth-like world who comes to our planet looking for a place to rule. He has the ability, like that of Superwoman, to negate dimensional protocols and travel among various times or parallel universes at will. Superman can do that sort of thing also, of course, but it's about the most difficult thing he knows how to do. For Kosmos it's as easy as setting a course and pressing a button. If you say so, he'll be back as well.

I wanted to mention one more interesting thing about my novel, Miracle Monday, if you don't mind. This is something I never really made much of or told anyone about, but for me, at least, Miracle Monday is a real holiday. In the book it's the third Monday of every May. On that day, according to the book, resort owners on the glaciers of Uranus raise ski-lift tickets for the influx of tourists. Teamsters driving slow-moving cargo transports to Earth from mining operations in the asteroid belt get drunk and silly like sailors crossing the Equator for the first time. In honor of Superman's chosen profession, even journalists can spend the holiday with their families. There are laughter, reflection, public celebration with barbecues and holographic light shows all over the solar system, merriments of all sorts. It's a big holiday. As it happens, here in the real world, I received my first copy of Superman: Miracle Monday in the mail from my editor at Warner Books on May 18, the third Monday in the month of May, 1981. It was a special day, totally coincidental, and I've never really told anyone that before. Considering what Superman did in the book on that day, it was a holiday worth celebrating for a long time, so along with my birthday, Einstein's birthday and the first day of summer, Miracle Monday is a day that I will probably continue to set apart.

So read, enjoy if you're of a mind to enjoy, and have a good day, old friend. Be in touch and...

Be happy,
Elliot

---

posted June 18, 2002 08:48 PM    

Here was Elliot S! Maggin coming back like a camp counsellor to his summer job, just to give us a taste of what he used to do on a monthly schedule in the Superman books back in the middle of the seventies. As if to play with that proverbial phrase that served as title for one of his best Clark Kent tales--"You can't go home!"

But it wasn't just Maggin who seemed to take a Marquis de Sade's pleasure in torturing us poor readers. There was also Murphy Clyde Anderson. Savagely he flaunted his inking talent--turning in superb embellishments of Curtis Douglas Swan's pencils--whenever the mood suited him, leaving us to wait for months or years before he again threw us a well delineated bone.

Starved we were. Starved I tell you. And so when an amazing adventure like the 1984 Superman Annual presented itself we didn't know whether to cry or cheer. Were rare events like this a cause for hope or despair? Were the gods truly cruel or merely infrequently kind?

The Eduardo Barreto cover, with a generous amount of Kirby Krackle (ol' Jack musta gotten rich selling that stuff to young artists), displays a mighty Superman holding his sword on high, as people in the background scramble to flee him.

That sword aspect of the cover and the story had an impact on all us readers, and I think many of us remember the tale as "The Sword of Superman." But just as the first Star Wars movie wasn't called "The Light Sabre of Luke Skywalker," this one also had another name. The official title on page 3 is "The Day the Cheering Stopped!" (written by Maggin, pencilled by Swan, inked by Anderson, lettered by Ben Oda, colored by Gene d'Angelo (who I believe was one of the longest serving creative people on Superman, I hope Gene is getting a nice pension for all those years of service), and edited by Julius Schwartz, 40 pages).

The first five pages are an example of the considerable prose writing talent that Elliot Maggin employed. My sore fingers reject the notion of actually transcribing all those perfectly formed sentences, yet it's impossible to otherwise suggest the level of literacy in these narrative captions. I'd tell anyone who has happened to click onto this post that they should find the actual comic and read it for themselves. But how much chance of that is there? 41 pages long I don't know this story will ever be reprinted (and given how badly reproduced Anderson's inks have been in some DC reprint books, maybe that's not all to the bad).

The fact is I can't communicate the excellence of the narrative and so I won't even try. It's good, take my word on it. It talks about the legend of Superman shared throughout the cosmos on many planets and how the actual phonetic unit <SU-PER-MAN> is pronounced the same everywhere by everyone. It talks about the origin of Superman and the origin of the universe. At times, it's positively biblical.

And after the Big Bang or the Genesis, however you want to call it, that created all matter in the universe, there was "one piece of primeval matter formed in the great creation that through some quirk of blind chance or some miraculous circumstance...took a shape that one day became not that of an unidentified piece of molten sludge...but through the foundry of space and the temperance of time--untouched by living hands--took the form of a sword...and came to be known--through that selfsame quirk or miracle--in millions of languages across the stars as...The Sword of Superman!"

And also by a quirk of destiny, the Star-Child also came to be called "Superman" <SU-PER-MAN>. Like out of a bible story, when the young superboy was choosing the garments of his heroic enterprise, his mother had created one design (like the block 'S' of the famous Superman logo), but her husband Jonathan in a dream had seen this other symbol (the same symbol which is pictured on the hilt of the Sword of Superman). "You know what a dreamer your father is!" "We should all be dreamers like that!"

And now the main body of the story begins. Jimmy goes off on the WGBS news copter, piloted by one Barbara, to interview Oswald Mandias on the billionaire's yacht. Jim promises Barbara dinner for providing him with transportation.

Days pass, Olsen's absence isn't noticed, but on another copter trip Barbara mentions to Perry and Clark that Jimmy owes her a hot meal.

A word to Clark produces a deed from Superman. Meanwhile Lana is reporting for GBS on the flight of the space shuttle Magellan which will launch a new communications satellite for Mandias Industries. When Superman doesn't find Mandias or Olsen or the yacht in Metropolis harbour, he heads for the Kennedy Space Center.

X-Ray eyes reveal Jimmy bound and gagged below decks on the Mandias yacht off the Florida coast. Jimmy tells his pal of the billionaire's plan to stowaway aboard the space shuttle. And soon enough Superman is on board the shuttle. Mandias has hidden inside the satellite capsule but without warning he awakens in a burst energy and cracks his way of his capsule hiding place. Engaging Superman in battle in airless space, the powerful adversary causes the Man of Steel's eardrums to vibrate so as to communicate his message.

For this is not really Oswald Mandias, but a returned King Kosmos. Using his strange powers, Kosmos inflicts great pain upon the Man of Tomorrow. As Superman, almost lifeless, falls Earthward it chances that the Sword of Superman is following its own path through the cosmos. And as if predestined it arrives in the hand of Superman, reawakening him.

Returning to Earth, under his own power, Superman is bewildered to find that no one recognizes him, everyone flees from him in fear. Superman tracks down Kosmos/Mandias being interviewed on the TV by Olsen. Mandias is announcing that he will address Congress the next day proposing that all world governments turn over their power to him so that he might martial his forces against a great alien threat to our planet.

At the studio, Superman again confronts Mandias/Kosmos and is again defeated. Left unconscious in the park, when Superman comes to, a crowd of people are staring at the strange alien creature they see, not recognizing him as their saviour.

Confused, Superman escapes to the moon to ponder his situation, studying the strange sword in his hands. He recalls one time on another planet, when saving a young boy, the child recognized the S shield on Superman's chest as being the same as that on the hilt of the Sword of Superman which they studied about in school.

The next day Superman enters congress, where Mandias/Kosmos is speaking. Holding his sword high, yet again the Man of Steel challenges Kosmos. Superman has used self-hypnosis to convince himself that everyone in congress is cheering him on, although in reality they are jeering him. In this way he supports his confidence in himself. Using the Sword he blasts Kosmos with a wierd energy which seems to reveal King Kosmos for who he truly is, as well as Superman for who he truly is.

Out on the Washington mall, the opponents engage in another rough and tumble contest. But, with the power of the Sword this time, Superman is victorious, and as he stands over the defeated Mandias/Kosmos the spirit of King Kosmos leaves the body of Mandias. Mandias is afraid that the Man of Steel will kill him, but Superman stops the sword from delivering the deathly blow. Oswald Mandias, when questioned, can't remember anything that has transpired for the last few days.

As Superman holds his Sword, he feels its power gather, inhabiting his whole being. Such power as he has never posessed before. Then yelling in large words-- "I...DON'T...WANT IT!"--his body shines with power and then all normalcy is returned.

"I knew the whole history...I mean--everything--the whole universe! I was starting to expand...spread over the winds themselves as--as a kind of all-seeing protector...but I decided instead to take back my life--and deal with the evil that falls across the vulnerable world...in my own way--for awhile!"

And so Superman throws his Sword back into the starry night of space.

Epilogue: A travelling storyteller feasts well at the table of his host, as repayment for the great tales he has told to his attentive audience. A child at the table asks again for the story of the Sword of Superman, and eagre to please a child, he tells again of the Sword. How it ever followed its course through the void, beyond the ability of anyone to capture, until it found its way to its namesake, who

"when he was about to become one with his universe--an immortal..." heard a voice that only he could hear--"You have done well, my son. You have earned your name, your future is your own to make. Your greatness among living things is assured. So shall it ever be."

And so the sword now continues on its flight through the heavens until its owner should decide to retrieve it or to follow it on its journey "to Eternity!"

---

posted June 22, 2002 11:13 AM    

If that wonderful SUPERMAN ANNUAL had been published just a few years later, it might have been called "The Last Temptation of Superman". Elliot S! Maggin was so adept at handling the idea of Superman's mythical resonance and his role as a humble savior. Maggin makes it obvious why Superman is such a legend in our universe and in his own, and he seems to be one of the few writers who were REALLY in tune with this idea.

One thing that comes to mind in the cool scene where Superman flies up to the space shuttle, and chats with the astronauts while "standing" upside down on the ceiling... Superman could easily just PUSH the astronauts and spacecraft of Earth far past the moon and into the furthest galaxies. He's already explored the whole cosmos under his own power, while our best technology struggles to lift a few heavily-equipped men into orbit. But he's ALLOWING us to reach space on our own. It will only mean something if we can do it for ourselves. It would be easy to resent Superman for holding back so much that he could offer, yet they seem to know he does it out of concern for humanity, not selfishness. For all the power that could set him apart, he wants to be among us as one of us, giving only the help we really need. If this isn't a perfect Christ analogy, I don't know what is.

That Epilogue was a nice touch as well. I caught the Old-Timer homage to the O'Neil / Adams stories right away. As a Green Lantern fan, Maggin seemed to be obsessed with linking the Guardians to Superman's history. He did it in SUPERMAN #243 with "Must There Be A Superman?", in #257 with Tomar-Re and the Guardians watching over Krypton, in his Superman novels and again here. The concept was such a good one, as long as it wasn't overdone, that even John Byrne preserved it intact, when he had the Guardians making sure Kal-El's rocket made it safely to Earth.

But when I first read the Annual, I started to wonder if this was supposed to be the original Old-Timer at all. The Epilogue seems to be set in the far future, and I wondered if maybe the aged storyteller in the red robe wasn't supposed to be Superman himself. He could tell the story so well because he was there. The swanderson art looks vague enough to me that MAYBE it could be an aged Superman. The final words of the story seem to imply that although Superman rejected godhood, he would someday be ready to embrace this as his destiny. I wonderered if maybe Maggin meant to imply that, like the mortal Guardian, Superman instead chose a state somewhere in between god and mortal, since he was transcending humanity but still could not give up his attachment to it. Looking back now, I think I'm probably reading too much into it, but it struck me at the time.

posted July 12, 2002 08:09 AM    

I've never even seen the eBay website, so I wouldn't know where to start.

posted July 27, 2002 05:41 PM    

The story begins with one of Luthor's probes collecting radioactive debris in space, its mission completed it crashes a foot away from Luthor who's been observing its rentry outside his lair. Although his men advised him to seek shelter in his bunker before it crashed, I love how Luthor dismisses the idea as he not only lives for science and would want to see these events first hand, but is so supremely arrogant that he'd rather die in one of his experiments than acknowledge the dangers of mother nature as being more important that his curiosity.

The scene cuts to Superman crashing through the apartment wall of a gunrunners den. Superman expresses his disgust at these men who would sell firearms to schoolkids and assures them that they'll be going to prison and that he'll soon catch up with their boss who's identity he's already worked out. Superman then brazenly orders the men to "Now stop looking so comical and climb aboard this table...and hold on tightly, because it might be a pretty rough flight to jail". I love how brazen Superman is in this scene - the fact that he can say "See that table? You're riding that to jail... Now get on!" and there isn't anything any of them can do. Just then the buzzer rings and Superman reaches to open the door acknowledging that he could use his X-Ray vision to see what's on the other side but instead "takes every opportunity to have what may be a pleasant suprise". As soon as the door's opened, the head gunrunner is tossed inside the room by Batman who greets his friend in idle chitchat. Looking over Batman's shoulder during this exchange, Superman asks if they might be able to add attempted murder to the charges. Batman immediately spins around, and flings his batarang at the man he threw to the floor knocking the gun he's taking aim with out of his hand. "No, I'm sure he didn't seriously think he could shoot me--He just wanted to give me batarand practice!" "Batman's quite a fellow for someone who can't even fly don't you think fellas?" remarks Superman as Batman swings away. That "every opportunity to be surprised" line really helps to explain what Superman sees in Batman - an admiration for his ingenuity.

Later that night, a young medical student named Reston meets up with Lex Luthor and delivers to him a package. He leaves his hideout to walk the streets. Having caught a glimpse of Superman flying over the city carrying some guys on a table on the way over to Luthor's lair, he feels nervous. On the walk home he cuts through some alleys with the uncomfortable feeling that he's being followed. He bumps into a wall with the words "HEY, FELLA!" spraypainted on it. Confused he starts to run and runs right into the Batman who interogates him. Later we see Batman with Superman talk on a rooftop but we get no clue what they're discussing.

After encountering a Luthor ambush aboard a hijacked subway train, Superman tracks down his nemesis beneath Metropolis. Picking up a manhole cover an enraged Superman shouts downwards "LU-THOR!". "Well, well, well, if it isn't..." Slamming the cover on the electrified tracks beneath him Superman quiets Luthor with the resounding clang. Still trying to get the ringing out of his ears, a bored looking Luthor greets Superman "Welcome to my temporary headquarters, Man of Steel...Metropolis Marvel...Man of Tommorrow...Eighth Wonder of the Universe...Defender of the Weak--" "STOW IT, LUTHOR!" Superman shouts as he lands out odf sight behind a planter. At his request, Luthor tells him his real plan and exposes him to a slightly altered rock of red kryptonite. Having tested it with the chemicals delivered to him by Reston, he knows what it'll do - turn Superman into an exact copy of the person closest to him at the moment of exposure. "ME!!" Grabbing Superman the reader sees that he's been transformed into an exact copy of Luthor who promptly injects him with a syringe that'll ensure that the transformation remains permanent. Holding him at bay with a gun, Luthor calls all the major TV stations amd newspapers so that he can set up a press conference. The conference is scheduled for a few hours from now and all eyes are on the empty podium where Luthor has not yet arrived. To evade the police awaiting his arrival a hologramatic projectuion of him materializes and the figure introduces himself as Erasmus Luthor who is in a secret location for his own protection. He tells a tale of having been held captive by his brother for years - exchanging his genius for the food and water needed to live. He has now found a way out of the prison he's been in for all these years and appears fullbodied to the audience with a handcuffed Lex Luthor who claims that he's lying. Erasmus explains that Lex's fingerprints will prove that he's really Lex Luthor and the next day drops his parachutted brother on Pocantico prison. Watching from Clark Kent's apartment the televised news that the prints indeed match is Batman who "sits...and waits...".

A few days later a helicopter attempts to land on the roof of a medical research facility in Metropolis, gets caught in some wires and falls to the street. Batman appears out of nowhere, kicks through the door, grabs the occupant and gets him to the roof introducing Erasmus Luthor to the head doctors gathered there. "I assume he's here looking for a job!". This is his intent and within the week has already provided cures for half a dozen diseases including some forms of skin cancer and other equally remarkable miracles. With news of his accomplishes reaching all parts of the world, Erasmus asks to have the world's governments at his disposal so that he ca acheive so much more. Watching the news from prison is Lex Luthor who rises and declares "This charade has gone on long enough!" and rips open his shirt. In Clark Kent's apartment, a figure rises, removes his Batman costume and reveals underneath his Superman uniform: "This charade has also gone on long enough!". Superman and Batman crash Erasmus' televised plea and engage in battle as the world watches. Pre-occupied with a trap prepared for him, Superman is forced to leave Batman to fend for himself which he does despite being outnumbered. Led away to jail, Superman explains the whole plot. It was Batman who, disguised as Superman, encountered Luthor in the subway and donned a disguise to look like Luthor. It was Superman who, disguised as Batman so Luthor would think he was still in prison, saved him on the roof of the Metropolis Research Center. "But why did you wait? Why did you rot in jail all that time?" Luthor asks. Batman: "Because you were doing our work for us!...Curing diseases ... making discoveries ... benefiting mankind--! I wish it could have lasted longer!" Batman then bursts out laughing and leaves the scene still laughing loudly to himself.

Epilogue. Clark Kent orders a hot-dog from an Italian street vendor, takes a bite, and is then told "That'sa seventy-two dolla an-a fifty cents!" "Excuse me?!" Kent declares that this is highway robbery and the vendor explains that his licence lets him charge whatever he feels is appropriate. As a compromise he offers to charge him only $25 for the bite he took. "That's worse! You want me to pay twenty-five dollars for a bite?". The argument draws a large crowd including a child sitting on a balcony who's curious as to what's going on. The railing gives way, the child falls and Kent chides himself for having drawn such attention to himself in public now that he has to change to Superman. As he runs to catch the boy hoping that no one'll notice him with all eyes on the boy, the vendor rips open his shirt revealing his Batman costume. He catches up to Kent whom he leap-frog's over and flings his apron over a post and catches the boy. The crowd cheers Batman and in the closing panel he pouts as he overlooks the city with Superman. "I didn't plan it that way, but now everyone knows I'm not above playing a joke on a friend!" "They also know something else," says Superman echoing something Luthor said to him as he was led off to jail "that sometimes, Batman, you can be a real pain!"

posted August 18, 2002 02:52 PM    

ACTION COMICS #582
(August, 1986)

�The Strange Rebirth of Jor-El and Lara!�

Writer: Craig Boldman
Artists: Alex Saviuk and Kurt Schaffenberger
Cover: Alex Saviuk and Murphy Anderson

*******

Jor-El, greatest scientist of the dying planet Krypton, urges his wife Lara to hurry, as she places their child Kal-El within the tiny experimental rocket that is his only hope to escape the obliteration of this world. We see these events from the toddler�s viewpoint, nestled within the rocket, as Jor-El�s lab crumbles all around the family, and the pressures within Krypton�s core build to its inevitable annihilation. Jor-El tells Lara there is still much to do in the little time remaining. Suddenly, there is a moment of blackness and silence; and then we see the rocket has been launched on its way to Earth, while the future Superman�s parents cling lovingly to each other, watching its ascent from ruins. "Kal-El will survive the cataclysm and rise ABOVE it, Lara!" says Jor-El solemnly. "And we shall live on," answers Lara, "through our SON!" Krypton explodes. The tiny rocket carries its young passenger off into the void of space...

Clark Kent spasms awake in his bed, escaping the nightmare he has just experienced. Clark slumps forward in misery, for he has had the same awful dream every night for a week. Changing to his Superman costume as the light of the dawn streams into his modest apartment, Clark reflects that "what really disturbs me about these dreams... is that brief gap in my memory of the events... occurring just BEFORE my infant form is rocketed to Earth!" Feeling certain that his mind will not rest easy until he recovers this missing fragment of his past, Superman flies off to his Fortress of Solitude.

Upon entering the Fortress, he is greeted by his hovering, robotic "butler" Quigley. "Good evening, sir!" bleeps Quigley. "Your presence at this hour is an unexpected pleasure!" (Quigley much resembles HERBIE the Robot from the old Fantastic Four cartoons, with Alfred Pennyworth�s personality as his programming. Quigley actually isn�t as cutesy or annoying as he sounds, but I guess Superman must have been jealous he didn�t have a butler like Batman...)

Superman approaches his mind-prober ray, a device he built long ago as Superboy, to energize the memory centers of his super-brain and restore faded memories of his life on Krypton. It looks like a metal throne beneath an old-fashioned beauty parlor hair-dryer. Seated under the ray, Superman recalls Jor-El hooking up an untested, experimental device to his own forehead, as well as that of his wife and son, just before launching Kal-El�s escape rocket.

Snapping out of his memory-trance, the adult Superman realizes that the implications are staggering. He uses the ultra-advanced medical equipment in the Fortress to scan his own brain for any trace of the device�s effects. He makes a shocking discovery: "This machine records evidence of not ONE set of brain waves within my head... but THREE!"

It seems that "my Kryptonian parents provided an ESCAPE ROUTE from my doomed home planet... not only for ME... but THEMSELVES as well!"

As he flies out of the Fortress, Superman looks back on its giant statues of Jor-El and Lara holding aloft a globe of Krypton. "Could my brain actually be storing the dormant essence of my Kryptonian parents? There can be only one reason why my father used that brain-wave transference device! He planted their thought-patterns in my head for safekeeping... in the hope that one day, I would find the means to restore them!"

Superman flies throughout the universe, journeying from one planet to another in search of the most brilliant medical experts he can find. With the knowledge he gains from these alien physicians and scientists, he soon finds himself ready for an awesome task. Back at the Fortress, he uses a hybrid of many alien technologies to construct a machine resembling the mind-prober ray, but connected by many tubes and cables to a pair of large glassine booths. "I�ve logged more light-years than I care to contemplate," explains Superman to the ever-loyal Quigley, who observes all from nearby. "I�ve bandied more theories about than I imagined EXISTED! But the REAL work starts NOW!"

"Assuming... as I am... that my parents exist at a 'CONCEPTUAL' level... the problem is to replace their physical forms, which were lost in Krypton�s explosion." ("Very good, sir," agrees Quigley.) "This can be done by a process similar to CLONING! This device will draw the necessary cells and materials from my body... nurture and grow them at accelerated speeds... and form new host-bodies for the 'stowaway' brain patterns hiden in my body!"

Superman secures himself into the red solar energy-powered device and straps on a strange helmet. "Mmm! My mouth is DRY! I feel CLAMMY! Better get this show on the road... before the realization of what I�m about to do really begins to sink in!" He hits the activator button, and is instantly wracked with pain. Energy crackles all around him, as embryonic shapes begin to form within the cloning chambers at his side. "The process! It�s BEGUN!" he cries out. "It... it�s... WORKING!"

"OH?" says Quigley. "I better set TWO extra places for tea!"

*******

A few days later, a smiling Clark Kent strolls into the Daily Planet offices to greet Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Perry White. Right behind Clark are a handsome-looking fiftyish couple. The lady is white-haired and dressed much like the early Sixties version of Lois; the gentlemen closely resembles Clark himself, right down to the conservative suit and glasses, though his hair is graying at the temples. "Friends", announces Clark, "I�m delighted to introduce you to my PARENTS! My REAL parents... Jordan and Lora Ellsworth!"

(continued)

posted August 24, 2002 11:57 AM    

"This IS a surprise, Clark!" says Jimmy. "I knew you were adopted... but I didn�t know you were searching for your biological parents!"

"The investigative reporter in him, no doubt", laughs 'Jordan'. "We weren�t the EASIEST folks to track down!" "But we�re SO GLAD he did!" agrees 'Lora'.

Clark and the 'Ellsworths' take their leave so that Clark can continue showing off his so-called stomping grounds to the newcomers. Lois can�t remember Clark ever looking so pleased. "Clark�s a good guy", says Jimmy. "He deserves a break once in a while! I only hope his 'new' parents are all he hopes them to be!"

Meanwhile, those parents are in a nearby alley with our hero, changing into their Kryptonian outfits, just as he changes into his Superman costume. They fly up, up, and away, to further explore the sights of the Els� new home... taking time to swoop past the Statue of Liberty. Jor-El and Lara express their relief that Kal-El was finally able to discover their use of the mind-transfer device and reconstitute them here on Earth. "It was a gamble", admits Jor-El. "But we had NOTHING to lose and EVERYTHING to gain!"

(All this time, a pair of sinister observers are watching the super-family on viewing monitors, from a hidden spaceship far above Earth. One is quite amused. "Did you hear? (Snort!) He said that it was a GAMBLE!")

Superman and his recreated parents land near the Great Sphinx in Egypt to examine the desert. "Earth is a lovely place, Kal!" enthuses Jor-El. "And your yellow sun!" marvels Lara. "It enhances the body- -expands the mind! It took us only HOURS to learn your language!"

Superman explains that flight is only one of the many powers he�ll teach them to use. Jor-El has already discovered his x-ray vision and used it to peer inside the burial chambers of a pyramid nearby. He�s so fascinated that he doesn�t notice as a sudden sandstorm appears within seconds, and buries him under tons of sand. Superman has deftly sidestepped the sand and laughs as Jor-El digs himself out. "I assure you, father-- that was NOT one of Earth�s natural weather occurrences!"

"It was your Kryptonian WIFE", grins Lara, as she waves a finger at him playfully, "trying to get your attention with a burst of super-breath! Let�s not let our minds wander, Jor! Here, KAL is the teacher and WE are the students!"

Proud at how well his parents are adjusting to their new life, Superman nonetheless can�t ignore a feeling of impending danger. He decides he must have become paranoid after so many years fighting crime. "You�ve sampled your basic abilities," explains the Man of Steel, as he leads the duo back into the skies, "though it�ll be a while before you move up to such esoteric skills as TIME and SPACE TRAVEL! Come along! We�ve got lots to do!"

On their way back to his Fortress, Lara rescues two passengers in a damaged hot air balloon that is about to plunge into the ocean. (One of these guys looks like Bob Rozakis; I assume the other one is based on somebody at DC too- Craig Boldman, maybe?) The befuddled balloonists expect their flying rescuer to be Superman, and they�re stunned when they see a woman instead. (Remember, Supergirl was already dead by this point in post-CRISIS continuity.) Superman offers his compliments. "Looks like you�re a NATURAL at the super-hero business, Mother!"

"After a lifetime of aiding people through inventions, theories, and formulas," grins Jor-El, "it seems a bit odd to take such a hands-on approach to saving lives!"

Back in the Fortress, Jor-El and Lara grow solemn and teary-eyed as they look upon the flag of Krypton and other Kryptonian relics Superman has preserved or recreated there. "Poor Mother and Dad," thinks Superman solemnly. "I�ve spent most of my life trying to come to terms with Krypton�s demise! But to THEM... it was only days ago that their proud planet still stood... only days since Father pleaded in vain with the Science Council to construct life rockets... and I was their baby boy."

The Last Son of Krypton places a comforting hand on his father�s shoulder, and his parents emerge from their reverie. They assure him they�ll manage to cope. After all, a new life on a healthy planet certainly beats the alternative...

The Super-Family all embrace in a hug beneath the now-statueless globe of Krypton.

(continued)

posted August 25, 2002 04:02 PM    

"Why, it�s my PHANTOM ZONE PROJECTOR!" exclaims Jor-El. "I invented it years before Krypton�s demise... it became Krypton�s official means of 'execution'! Convicted felons were transported into a dimension where they became ethereal beings-- living ghosts! From the Zone, they could observe events in the physical world, but have no BEARING upon them!"

Superman explains that the Projector, and the criminals within the Zone, all survived Krypton�s explosion. He uses a special viewscreen to "tune in" on the Phantom Zone so that they can see and communicate with the inmates.

General Zod, Jax-Ur, Faora Hu-Ul, Professor Vakox and the usual gang all float into view for some impotent fist-waving and threats. "Someday we�ll be free, Kal-El," declares Zod, "and that day will be your LAST! This I promise!"

Superman is surprised that Zod would threaten him while ignoring the sight of a living Jor-El right beside him. After all, it was Jor-El who discovered the Zone in the first place, and created the means for their imprisonment... the Phantom Zoners should hate him most of all.

Just as Superman begins to suspect something is very wrong, he is in for another surprise. "KAL--!" warns Jor-El. "DON'T TOUCH THAT PROJECTOR!" And Superman yanks his hand away as twin beams of heat vision melt the Zone Projector into slag.

"We�ve been watching this little play unfold, Kal-El!", sneers General Zod, still visible on the viewscreen. "Too bad you weren�t able to look BEHIND the scenes... like US!" "I only wish that WE had been responsible", says Jax-Ur.

"Great Stars," gasps a horrified Superman, as evil grins appear on the faces of his reconstituted �parents�, who have assumed fighting stances. "YOU�RE NOT MY PARENTS AT ALL- - ARE YOU?"

"Now, SUPERMAN," mocks 'Lara'. "How can you SAY that?"

"After all," says 'Jor-El', "you created these bodies! We�re flesh of your flesh! As for those extra sets of BRAIN WAVES you found in your head..."

"-- Let�s just call it a slight case of MISTAKEN IDENTITY!"

He punches Superman right through the wall into the next room, where Quigley is hovering about, dusting a collection of alien artifacts. Sprawled on the floor, the Man of Steel falls victim to a sizzling blast of heat vision, and grabs for the shield from a suit of extraterrestrial armor to protect himself. "Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. El!", bleeps Quigley. "The super-power training is progressing smoothly, I trust?"

The false Lara smashes the "annoying machine" Quigley into scrap with one blow, while her partner kicks Superman's shield apart. "Surely you can hold your own against us, Superman", he laughs. "Even TWO of us! After all-- you�ve had so much more EXPERIENCE with super-powers!"

But the Man of Might can�t bring himself to strike back against the foes who wear his parents� faces, and he is soon battered mercilessly into unconsciousness by the evil doppelgangers.

When he awakens, he finds himself right outside the Fortress, bound with his own invulnerable cape to a tiny red-and-blue spacecraft. "Do you recall the LAST time you were a passenger in this craft, Superman?" laughs the Lara duplicate. "It�s the rocket that originally brought you to EARTH! It still contains an unused reserve tank of KRYPTONIAN FUEL!"

The false Kryptonians focus their heat vision on the tank, super-heating the fuel to make it "very VOLATILE- - a regular TIME-BOMB! In seconds it will create an explosion of super-magnitude, engulfing both YOU and METROPOLIS- - since that is GROUND ZERO!"

So saying, the Jor-El doppelganger lifts the rocket, Superman and all, and flings it skyward at incredible velocity. "I hope our MASTERS are watching!" gloats the evil Lara.

Unable to flex so much as a muscle to free himself, the tightly bound Superman is plunging toward the Metropolitan skyline within moments. The sinister observers we saw earlier are watching the whole thing on their monitor screens from outer space. But the heavy cloud cover above Metropolis temporarily obscures their view of the rocket, and their screens then suddenly go blank with static.

"Obviously, the rocket exploded and disrupted our transmission!" says one. "But we can leave nothing to chance! We must see what�s happened! Set course for EARTH!"

Soon, their spacecraft is orbiting the planet, and the interference to their monitoring equipment clears. They are surprised to see the intact skyscrapers of Metropolis, complete with the Daily Planet globe, appear onscreen.

"Hmm! Metropolis has beaten the odds- - and SURVIVED! But where is SUPERMAN?"

"Since you ASKED- - -!"

Superman�s mighty fist smashes his way through the hull of their spacecraft, and he steps inside to see...

"ROKK and SORBAN from the planet Ventura! I wondered who hated me enough to engineer such a scheme! On your world, GAMBLING is the all-consuming obsession! Everything�s a GAME to you!"

Sorban (who has grown a goatee, presumably so it�s easier to tell the duo apart) protests that hatred had nothing to do with it. Instead, their fascination with Superman�s code against killing had led to yet another wager. Discussing the "odd PATERNAL FEELINGS that loom so largely in beings of your type", Rokk and Sorban decided to have evil beings impersonate his parents, to learn whether or not "he would be driven to KILL the impostors- - for desecrating their memory, you know!" Rokk believed he would kill, while Sorban bet that he would rather die himself.

Superman demands to know how they made the scheme work. Sorban explains that "Those 'brain-wave' impostors were merely free-floating intellects we snatched from a neighboring dimension! Interesting species! Invisible-- bodiless-- and easily PROGRAMMABLE! They can be trained to perform ANY TYPE of MISCHIEF! Via long distance, we tampered with your mind-prober chair. THAT was the instrument we used to implant our little spies in your head! The chair contained records of your memories of Krypton... which our impersonators absorbed! And I used my MENTAL POWERS to give you the bad dreams which set things off!"

Rokk is puzzled as to how Superman survived the rocketexplosion. "I didn�t HAVE to escape!", declares the Man of Tomorrow. "That rocket was a MOCK-UP! The ordinary EARTH-FUEL exploded and set me FREE! Then I waited for you to come down and take a look!"

But the villainous Venturans still aren�t satisfied. They want to know what Superman did with their clone-impostors. After all, they have a WAGER depending upon the outcome of all this...

Superman refuses to give them the satisfaction of an answer. "I�m confident that Superman will NEVER be pushed to the point of commiting murder!", insists Sorban. "You�d best hope that I never get closer to that point than I am RIGHT NOW", says Superman, lifting the alien gamblers roughly by their collars. "I�ll RESIST that temptation... and place you in SPACE-PRISONS instead-- on OPPOSITE sides of the galaxy! You�ve broken a whole shopping list of interplanetary laws!"

Rokk and Sorban are more horrified by the threat of separation than of death. "But that�s INHUMAN! We�re PARTNERS! With whom will we make wagers?"

As he pushes their spaceship across the galaxy on its way to a distant prison-asteroid, Superman reflects to himself about how he in fact defeated the evil clone-beings. "My father�s impostor was right-- my long years of super-power practice DID give me an edge! After my �death-trap escape�, I took the offensive... encircled them at light-plus speeds... and whisked them into the TIME-STREAM. A feat they wouldn�t be able to master on their own without YEARS of experience! I left them stranded in the stream-- TRAPPED between moments in time, as disembodied observers... figuring that would render them harmless while I investigated their mysterious MASTERS!"

"But in light of their true nature... I think I�ll LEAVE them there! They were bodiless creatures before-- and now they are again! Hopefully, they�ll soon forget this brief moment when they wore physical forms-- forms which don�t belong to them!"

"Perhaps even their encounter with ROKK and SORBAN will fade from their memories! And if so... they�ll be a great deal luckier than I!"

As Superman hauls the duo from their ship on the distant prison-asteroid, an alien guard is already running up to take custody of them. (Apparently, interplanetary law doesn�t have to bother with the time and expense of TRIALS... you can just take the spacefaring scallawags directly to jail.)

*******

AFTERMATH

Back at his Fortress, Superman finishes restoring Quigley to his old self with a full repair job. (He even uses a super-tool kit.) "Very good, sir!", bleeps the rebuilt robot.

Superman pauses as he strides past the restored statues of Jor-El and Lara beneath the globe of Krypton. He looks up at the giant figures sadly.

"Well, Mother and Father... that didn�t work out as well as it MIGHT have, did it? I let my hopes get the best of me. A potentially FATAL error for a Superman!"

The Man of Steel slumps wearily to the floor, to sit at the feet of his father�s towering statue. "I did my best. I hope you can UNDERSTAND that!... I was counting on MIRACLES! But now... the most I have to HOPE for...

...is that eventually, these BAD DREAMS will go AWAY."

And so, later that night, Quigley comes hovering down the corridors of the Fortress, serving tray in hand, and comes upon the peacefully silent Last Son of Krypton still sitting in that very spot. "Sir, would you like a cup of tea? Oh, my!..."

"I believe he�s fallen ASLEEP!"

The End.

*******

It�s interesting to note that, although the dimension the bodiless impostors hail from is not specifically named, it is certainly Quarrm, the dimension that figured so greatly in the "Sand Creature" saga of the early Seventies, which inaugurated the then-modernized version of Superman under Julius Schwartz's editorship. Boldman�s use of Quarrm in this, the last "canonical" story of Schwartz�s Superman tenure, can�t be a coincidence. It�s there at the beginning and there at the end... the two stories form bookends of a sort for the Schwartz Era. The ending seems actually very poignant to me, reminiscent of the Hamilton Silver Age stories. Superman realizes he has to let go of the past... just as he�s about to lock the door on that version of the past and be reborn into another incarnation of sorts. The "new" John Byrne version of Superman was right around the corner, as promised in this issue�s letter column by the departing Answer Man, Bob Rozakis.

This issue�s "Action Reaction", which featured the last time we�d see that great Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez shot of Clark changing into Superman in the phone booth atop a letter column masthead, leads off for once with a letter from the issue�s writer. I think it�s worth quoting in full here:

"Dear Julie:

I feel very fortunate to have gotten the chance to work on the Superman books. If I could�ve picked any assignment in the comics field, I would�ve chosen to do exactly this. In the short time I�ve been writing, I have had my words interpreted and expanded upon by Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Wayne Boring, Al Williamson, Bob Oksner, Murphy Anderson_ all heroes of mine. It�s been just as much a thrill to have some of my stories done by the "younger guys" (Howard Bender and Alex Saviuk), as well as by close friends like Karl Kesel and Ron Randall. It�s even been fun trading letters with Nelson Bridwell. And there�s even a perverse thrill to be had in being around at the end of an era. Quite a kick all around. Not only have I been able to write stories about a living legend__but I got one as a boss as well.

It�s been a pleasure and I certainly hope it won�t be long before we�re working on something else together. Keep me in mind for whatever else you may have cooking between now and the year 2000. But for my money you can�t beat SUPERMAN.

CRAIG BOLDMAN, Fairfield, OH"

After letting a few contributors have their say, Rozakis assures them that ACTION COMICS will be concluding this run with the second part of Alan Moore's "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" next month and a special Bridwell text piece covering the highlights of Superman's history. Then it will go on a brief hiatus before returning with its numbering intact under a new creative team. He signs off with his usual reminder to Look, Up in the Sky...

It kind of reminds me of when a beloved sitcom goes off the air, and they like to show one last shot of the empty set as the lights go out.

posted September 01, 2002 08:12 PM    

quote:

---

Posted by Aldous 11 July:
I just read a brief synopsis of the two-part story, "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore & Curt Swan, in Superman #423 and Action #583, that convinced me I must read this story.
My question is: has this story been reprinted in a TPB or something else I would be able to get at the local comic book store?

---

quote:

---

Posted by India Ink 11 July:
I don't know if your comics store would have it. Mine had it sitting on their shelves for a few years. I looked at it every now and then, and I didn't see the point in buying it since I had the original comics. Then one day when there was a TPB sale on I picked it up along with a lot of other TPBs. So now that lone copy is sitting on my shelf, not theirs.
A nice slim volume that reprints most of the contents of the originals. Worth having at the right price. And if it can't be had through your local store (or they can't order it in for you), then I'm sure it can be had via the internet. But I don't know much about all these internet stores and internet auctions.

---

Well, I just went into the local comic book store and they can get me Whatever Happened for around eighteen New Zealand dollars.

posted September 20, 2002 09:17 AM       

Enjoy!

posted September 24, 2002 12:17 AM    

quote:

---

Aldous:
I just read a brief synopsis of the two-part story, "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?" by Alan Moore & Curt Swan, in Superman #423 and Action #583, that convinced me I must read this story.

---

quote:

---

Aldous:
Well, I just went into the local comic book store and they can get me Whatever Happened for around eighteen New Zealand dollars.

I ought to have it in about a fortnight, so once I've read it I'll let you know what I think.

---

The collected volume of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" finally arrived, and I read it last night.

posted September 24, 2002 06:32 AM    

In the introduction to the collected edition of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow," Julius Schwartz says that he decided to have Kurt ink Curt for the last instalment of the story because Kurt had never inked Curt before.

posted September 24, 2002 01:08 PM       

quote:

---

Originally posted by Aldous:
The collected volume of "Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow" finally arrived, and I read it last night.

And, well... what did youguys think of it?

---

Well - I'm probably in the minority but I wasn't thrilled with it. I just came away with a feeling of sadness and resignation at an era forever gone.

I realize it's asking much to conclude an entire mythos within 2 issues, but the parade of carnage - albeit heroically portrayed, loses its impact after a while. And I thought Superman's reasoning for hanging it up at the end seemed flimsy, given the circumstances of Mxypltlk's "death".

"Keeping it real" while a revelation in Watchmen,was out of place in this setting IMO.

Could anyone have done a better job under the circumstances? Maybe not, but it doesn't change my opinion of the story.

posted September 26, 2002 02:55 PM    

First, there are so many things to like--the pairings of both Swan and Schaffenberger, and Swan and Perez, are great and well-served by this slim quality reprint volume. The ENB text is also a nice little thing to have (especially given that Bridwell died only about a year or so later). And there are all those other visual treats--so many characters that we get to glimpse for one final time--plus that sad but touching cover showing all the creative geniuses waving farewell to their character.

But it occurs to me that someone at the top at DC had to know well in advance when this Superman would make his final bows. Maybe they strung Schwartz along--maybe negotiations with Byrne were ongoing up to the last minute--maybe Byrne himself held out the possibility that his Superman would simply be a continuation of the Schwartz legacy rather than an overthrow of it. Putting aside all those maybes, however I feel that we should have had three years of the Schwartz Superman (from 1983-86), wherein all the creators colaborate in an extended tale of Superman that ultimately ended with the end of the Schwartz legacy (but not necessarily the death of Superman).

Instead those three years were spent meandering about with no clear purpose, as Schwartz seemed prevented from doing anything substantial with the character--essentially just holding a parking space for Byrne whenever he might drive up, if he ever did.

It's too bad that Schwartz didn't have a chance to tell an epic extended tale on the order of the Super-Sandman Saga or the Ra's al Ghul stories (I write about Schwartz as if he were a writer, but we should remember that in his capacity as editor he was actually as much an author of those stories as the credited writers and artists).

Yet Alan Moore let's us read this two-part tale in such a way that we don't have to accept it as the ultimate story of the "Silver Age" Superman. It's a possible story, an imaginary tale, but it isn't really the conclusion of that legacy.

I choose to think of the legacy as something incomplete, but still existing. What really happened next in 1986 was never written--and so I can choose to believe that the end was something else.

Furthermore, going over all the Weisinger and Schwartz comics, we can envision other pathways. There were stories of future Supermen--and these weren't exactly Elseworlds or Imaginary Stories. There were hints of Superman's future in the Legion of Super-Heroes.

posted September 26, 2002 03:55 PM    

Considering the huge number of Swan stories, it's understandable that Schwartz could make such a mistake (even though he was the editor of record for all of the above).

As for "Whatever Happened To the Man of Tomorrow?"... well, I'll have to comment more extensively on that at some future time. But I will say that, although I think it's a great story and I like it a lot, I also think it's a cheat.

Supposedly, it's a grand celebration of what has gone before, and Alan Moore's misty eyed farewell to the wild and imaginative elements of the Superman mythos during the 50s and 60s and 70s that he loves dearly. I think that's a gross misunderstanding. Ultimately, I have to regard this story as either: a concession to the idea that the spirit of those times is outdated and must be cast aside, or a parody of the more "serious" and "realistic" spirit that will be its replacement. In either case, he fails at what he supposedly set out to do, the celebration itself. I'm not sure if Moore himself recognized this.

(Plus, Luthor is there as nothing more than Brainiac's arms and legs. That's unforgivable! He's LUTHOR, for crying out loud!)

posted September 26, 2002 06:54 PM    

I definitely have several other comics like this, Curt S. + Kurt S. I could be persuaded to dig them out if required.

But...

It seems very odd to me that Julius Schwartz would forget something like that. As soon as I read those comments, examples of Curt + Kurt art appeared before my mind's eye, and I thought, "Waitaminute."

posted September 26, 2002 07:08 PM    

quote:

---

Continental Op:
(Plus, Luthor is there as nothing more than Brainiac's arms and legs. That's unforgivable! He's LUTHOR, for crying out loud!)

---

posted October 16, 2002 03:21 PM    

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sankoni:
I agree with Shiuper

---

I beg your pardon?

posted January 02, 2003 04:41 PM    

I have no doubt that 544 is a great comic--certainly an artistic treat--but it definitely sits badly with me.

By the time that issue came out I was a great fan of the Lexor stories (written by Ed Hamilton) and long desired a return to Lexor. So I was quite excited that we finally got Luthor back on Lexor, but for Bates to just use the planet as a set-up for Luthor's revenge rampage was about as bad as killing off Iris Allen to give Barry some angst.

If this story had to be written it's too bad that Edmond Hamilton didn't get to write it.

The way that Hamilton just suddenly disappeared from the Superman books has always left me with this unfullfilled feeling. Hamilton began so much--and then after him a lot of that was disregarded. It would have been better if Ed had had the chance in the late sixties to finish off a lot of what he had begun. If he had written the finish of Lexor it might not have been so confused. He's the one writer who truly understood Luthor.

posted March 08, 2003 04:01 PM    

The first quote is from the "Superman in the 70s" thread, page 20, while the other posts come from "Keith Giffen Superman Story in an 80's German Comic" on the OTHER SUPERMAN TOPICS forum...

quote:

---

Originally posted by Continental Op:
There was indeed a lot of Superman material (and presumably other DC material) produced exclusively for foreign markets, much like Disney has published tons of stuff distributed only outside of North America, and Marvel had their Captain Britain stories and such for the U.K. Some of the foreign DC material was eventually reprinted in the American books, but much of it wasn't.

Here's the full scoop from Bob Rozakis' online Answer man column as it appeared about a year ago, which can be found regularly at http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003841/http://www.silverbulletcomicbooks.com/ (I hope the cut and pasting works correctly here, and that Bob wouldn't mind the unauthorized reproduction):

< Here's the story on the lost Parasite story mentioned in last week�s column:
The story that recounted the Parasite�s marriage to a lawyer named Lorna and the birth of their kids, Trini and Troy, was actually published, albeit only in Germany. In 1981, DC began creating original Superman stories for its insatiable German audience at the request of their West German publisher, Ehapa, as related in a comprehensive article by Dave Peterson in THE COMICS BUYER'S GUIDE # 519. The episodes ranged from forty-six page "novels" intended for a quarterly graphic album to thirty-pagers for SUPERMAN HEFT. Unlike Disney, who permitted additional adventures of Donald Duck and company to be produced by foreign publishers, DC generated the additional Superman adventures themselves. Writers included Bob Rozakis, Paul Kupperberg, Cary Bates, E. Nelson Bridwell and Elliot Maggin while artists ranged from Curt Swan and Alex Saviuk to Gil Kane and Alex Toth.
DC published several of the stories in English over the next few years but they never had a chance to publish "The Parasite Curse," which is credited to Cary Bates, Alex Saviuk and Dave Hunt. The installation of the post-Crisis John Byrne-continuity pretty much killed any chances of the story ever seeing print and the hints offered in 1986�s WHO�S WHO # 17 are as close as any American readers are likely to get to seeing that story.
-- John Wells (johnwells99@yahoo.com)

Thanks, guys. A few of the stories that were done for Ehapa actually did see print in issues of ACTION COMICS and SUPERMAN, but the Parasite tale was not among them.>

Personally, I would LOVE to see these lost stories of the "Lame Duck Superman" (as India Ink has termed the era). I mean, DC is sitting on essentially NEW Curt Swan-illustrated Superman stories? But sadly, there would be virtually no audience left for these in the States. The chances of seeing these reprinted in the U.S. are about as low as the chances of throwing a rock in Canada without hitting a guy named Gordon.

Maybe they could show up in the Archives, but by the time the Superman Archives roll around to the mid-Eighties, I'll be lucky to be alive even as a disembodied brain in a jar.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by exredleg:
Help!

Back in the 1986-1989 timeframe, I was stationed in Germany while serving in the Army. One day while shopping in downtown Nurnberg, I stumbled upon some German reprints of DC Comics. I was still collecting comics "long distance" thanks to monthly shipments from my "home shop" back in Chicago, so I was still fairly current on what was going on in the Super-books.

One of the stories in the German editions caught my eye. It was drawn by Keith Giffen! If my memory serves me correctly, it may have been inked by Larry Mahlstedt. The art looked as if it were from the "pre-Toth tribute era" of Giffen's run on the Legion.

I didn't read German ... but a few things I remember from the story:

An appearance by the skeletal Braniac

Superman seemed to be trapped in a device that allowed Brainiac to review Supeman's memories (my memory could be faulty here!)

One of Superman's memories dealt with "Superbaby" ... looked to be a humorous moment!

All-in-all it looked like a neat story ... a story I never saw in print in a U.S. Superman comic!

Does anyone know if this story was ever printed in the U.S. ?? If not, how about a reprint in a future Superman comic !!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Mikishawm:
DC prepared more than two dozen Superman stories specifically for the German market between 1981 and 1985 but only a handful were reprinted in the U.S. And, unfortunately, the story you recall is one that never appeared here.

My friend Norbert Elbers, who lives in Germany, has been helping me compile a list of those stories and drew my attention to this request. I believe he's identified the story that you're looking for.

It's "The Wall of Infinity," a 46-pager plotted and written by Robert Loren Fleming & Keith Giffen, pencilled by Giffen and inked by Romeo Tanghal. And, yep, the skeletal Brainiac is the villain of the piece. It appeared in SUPERMAN TASCHENBUCH # 72.

It'd be really great if DC would reprint this and some of the other stories in English but, in the meantime, you might want to check eBay and see if anyone's selling that edition.

Hope this answered your question.

John Wells

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by n-man:

"...My friend Norbert Elbers, who lives in Germany, has been helping me compile a list of those stories and drew my attention to this request."

yeah - that's me.

But the credit appertains not only to me. It's teamwork. A friend of mine - Georg - and I tried to attach the German issues to the original US comic books.

In the past (until ca. 1987) the German publisher didn't say what the US issue was from the comics they bring out. And so it was a huge work to detect the US original.
And on the search we find some stories which has never been published in USA. It's surprising but true.

Because we don't have all US comics from DC (but all German issues) it was very difficult to say this German book is this US book. When we are at a loss we described the story and miki knew the answer....

Another example is a Parasite story. In an old WHO'S WHO in Amerika you can read, that he has two children. But also this story is unknown in USA, but published in Germany.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Continental Op:
I would really, really, really, really, really, really, really like to see these stories finally published in English!

Too bad DC must be sure there is no longer a market for this kind of Superman. But I envision something like a series of "Elseworlds 100 Page Super-Spectaculars" that I think would sell fairly well even today.

DC has loosened up considerably in recent years when it comes to allowing REPRINTS of Weisinger-era and Schwartz-era Superman material; why not allow previously UNSEEN material as well?

The Brainiac and Parasite stories sound fascinating, and in particular I think it's downright criminal that DC should have unpublished Superman art by Curt Swan that they won't print.

Oh well.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by exredleg:
Mikishawn & n-man,

Thanks for all your detective work! I will try to track down that book on eBay. I probably remember enough German to make some sense of the story.

Meanwhile ... let's see these stories reprinted in English!

---

posted May 16, 2003 11:12 PM       

"Was mid to late 80's the best DC ever?" http://web.archive.org/web/20050219003841/http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/files/Forum94/HTML/009215.html

I don't think I've ever posted so much to a single topic.